We are all used to visiting a companies Facebook, Google and Trip Adviser to plan trips. But are all online reviews written equal? 

By searching ‘Amazon review’ on Facebook, Which? found that 16 of the top 25 groups were trading in reviews, with more than 200,000 members between them. In one group with 27,000 members, there were as many as 6,406 posts in a day.

We are more than twice as likely to buy a bad quality product, just because it has lots of positive reviews. – Which?

With all these fake reviews on products, how can we trust travel sites such as Trip Adviser to tell us where to go on holiday?

Which? compared almost 250,000 reviews during their investigation, and found that some of the top-rated hotels in the Middle East, Las Vegas, and even a property under  Travelodge, had suspicious activity that suggested their reviews were faked.

Which? discovered that, of the 15 hotels that they raised concerns about, 14 had received warnings from TripAdvisor for dubious review content over the past year.

Although Which? found many reviews that were fake, Trip Advisor claims that 2.1% of all reviews submitted to the site in 2018 were fake.

A total of 4.7% of all review submissions were rejected or removed for violating TripAdvisor’s review guidelines.

Which? may be warning us about large hotel chains creating fake reviews to boost their popularity but what about those attempting the opposite?

Deliberately leaving poor reviews can cause companies to run into major issues, reducing footfall significantly.

Online reviews such as those on Google, Facebook or Trip Advisor can make or break a business. Some businesses and customers swear by them, others curse their existence.

So how do you identify a fake holiday review?

Which? recommends…

• Inspect the comments
  Don’t base your choice off of star ratings alone, make sure that people talk about their experiences with the product.
• Watch out for suspicious language
  If it sounds like an advert, it’s probably fake!
• Are reviews about the actual hotel?
  Make sure you can’t see duplicates of reviews for other locations.
• Check out less positive reviews
  Some problems may not apply to everyone but if there are significantly more positives burying the negative this is a red flag!

Find out more ways to spot a fake review on the Which? website so you can get the best out of your trip.