With summer approaching, those of you who are actually going on vacation should be aware. Of what you may ask? Well it seems that some major hotels are using fake user reviews to lure in potential customers.
It has been revealed that on hotel review Web sites, major hotel companies are paying people to post positive remarks about themselves and negative comments about competitors. It is also being reported that PR firms and tourist offices are actually encouraging the hotels to send in fake reviews.
Online reviews are used by consumers because they expect fair comments from fellow users, not from those paid to sound cheery and upbeat. I know we have all been on sites where product reviews sound unbelievable. For example, I was recently shopping for a new phone. So as I searched the web for what others had to say I came upon this review, “I really love my new *name omitted*. It's so easy to use and so light. There’s really no other phone out there that can compare!”
Consumers are already “ify” about the reviews they read on the internet, but providing fake reviews can easily backfire and have a company labeled as being untrustworthy.
-Travis Francis
Wow, that's crazy. See, this is the nasty/negative side to PR, which I want to never take part in. This is also the downfall to social media ... you don't know who's TRULY at the other end of the media. People could be acting like a specific person that's blogging, when it's really a fake or someone that is hired to act like someone (I.E. Reports have come out that Kanye West has an assistant to help with write/manage his blog, which in my opinion is not cool.) This situation with the ratings of hotels is way more serious though. I look at ratings for hotels all the time because I definately travel on a some what regular basis. I guess there's a good and bad side to everything, including PR and social media.
ReplyDelete-- Samantha Savory
I know exactly what you're talking about. Recently, when my roommate and I were looking for spring break hotels in Miami, we read quite a few hotel reviews that seemed a little skeptical. I would read some horrible reviews about hotels but then randomly there would be a great review saying how wonderful the hotel was. Now, does that make sense? To have a bunch of reviews saying how bad a hotel is and then find about two that say how excellent their stay was at the establishment. And on top of that, the review didn’t even sound like a customer who stayed at the hotel but instead a person who was hired to state something positive. I don't know how I feel about that. If you can’t even get a real customer who actually stayed at your hotel to say something positive about their stay, why would I want to spend my money there? I say stick with what you know and don't always trust the reviews.
ReplyDeleteKiah T.