It is believed that 5-10% of all hotel reviews available online ARE FAKE. It may not be an alarming figure, but it still shows that you need to know how to spot fake (and real) hotel reviews to be cautious when using online hotel reviews to pick a hotel for your next vacation. To be able to determine whether a review is a fake or not, all you have to do is look out for telling signs that almost every fake review has.
Here is how I spot a fake and real hotel reviews:
It is all too goody-goody
Fake reviews are all about how good and wonderful the hotel is. Real reviews of hotels (no matter how good they are) would mention the downsides, no matter how small or large they may be. When you do not see any downside but you can see only compliments and praises, you need to be cautious.
It is a feature list
Fake reviews usually are about what the hotel offers and every detail about the room, rather than important details that matter more to tourists like the hotel’s performance and staff behavior.
Obvious inconsistency
Look out for differing views or reports about the same hotel. One review praising a hotel while others are not being suspicious and most likely fake.
It features a lot of links pointing to the establishment
A review page with a lot of links pointing to the hotel or establishment is usually a sign that it is being used as a means of promoting it. Such a hotel review is very likely to be a fake.
“It is so awesome!!!!”
If a hotel review sports numerous exclamation marks, and is overflowing with hype and excitement, and claims the hotel is too good to be true, it probably is a fake.
It is all “hotel this and hotel that”
Look out for it is a lot of mention of the hotel’s name in the review. Writers usually try to work with a kind of subliminal advertising tactic. They think that the more the hotel’s name is mentioned, the better it is marketed.
It is either too long or too short
A fake hotel review is either too short (because the writer did not want to spend writing a fake review), or is too long (like 15 paragraphs, which no one would write) unless there was something in it for them.
Stay away!
These are some hints for you to know how to spot a fake (or real) hotel reviews. Look out for the points mentioned above, and do not read just one hotel review. Instead, read different reviews of different sites before making a well-thought judgment of the hotel in question.
If they’re faking their own reviews, what more can you expect from their service?
Your turn
Share to us how you spot fake hotel reviews by commenting below!