Voyager’s World, Bangalore, India – December 2011
Is that Review Genuine?
The reviews on travel review websites look good and glowing. But how trustworthy are such reviews?
Firoz Fazil finds out.
Excerpts from article:
“If you start with the fact that there is no verification process – not even to confirm that is a genuine customer that has written the ‘review’, then you have to sensibly start from a point of mistrust,” said Chris Emmins, co-founder of KwikChex.com.
"In fact, the evidence is very strong that review fraud (positive and negative) is at extremely high levels in several countries in the Asia region - notably India, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.” (Chris Emmins, KwikChex)
“A New York Times article tells us that there is an industry of “fibbers and promoters” who do fake reviews for a price.”
“And there are sites like fiverr.com where people swarm to offer ‘I will post a positive review for your company for $5’!”
“Having looked at around 10,000 review and feedback sites, (not just travel), KwikChex has found that lack of verification has enabled extensive abuse. ‘We are particularly concerned about Google’s resources – their place/maps reviews and their new hotel finder as they are obviously very prominent in search results and have virtually no diligence in the system at all.’”
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