Spot the fake

In one of the first legal cases of its kind in Italy, the Criminal Court of Lecce recently ruled fake reviews using a false identity as a criminal conduct under the Italian criminal law. This move resulted in sentencing the proprietor of PromoSalento, which sold fake review packages to hospitality businesses in Italy, to nine months in prison and was also ordered to pay approximately 8,000 Euros in costs and damages. In effect to the Italy case, the travel and restaurant portal giant TripAdvisor supported the prosecution of PromoSalento as a civil claimant by sharing evidence from their extensive in-house fraud investigations.

In India, with the concept of travel picking pace, the importance of reviews on travel portals have become substantial — for the travellers who rely on them and also the travel companies that benefit from them. But there’s also a dark side to the online travel world. Founder of The Hotel Explorer, Vishakha Talreja informs that there is an entire industry thriving solely on jacked-up ratings. “This is happening a lot these days because the market is relying largely on customers and reviewers. Often when people don’t have a good experience, they will write a fake review with false information,” she says.

Shailza Sood Dasgupta

Ironically, those with independent voices are also jumping in on the bandwagon. In the era of social media, Bloggers and instagrammers are now being asked to write reviews of luxury hotels they quite apparently didn’t visit, of flights they didn’t take, and travel insurances they haven’t availed. Co-founder of Home Stays of India, Shailza Sood Dasgupta narrates one of her experience. “When I was a freelance travel writer and photographer, I came across a company who asked me to write reviews about their chain of hotels sitting at home. They would provide with pictures of the property and fill in with other intricate details,” she says.

A lot of it also stems from the obvious professional rivalry. Hardi Oza Patel who runs Ahmedabad-based travel portal Aura Holiday Makers, says she was approached to write fake reviews for Taj Hotel. “They were ready to pay around Rs 5000 for those comments. I was asked to write things like, ‘I was not satisfied with the room service, or the tap wasn’t working’,” she says.  To this Vishakha adds that the growth in the number of fake reviews can also be attributed to those digital marketers and social media influencers who are paid to generate fake reviews which are then consumed by their followers where good or bad doesn’t matter.

And on occasions, many user-generated portals even pull content not originally meant for their website. “There is a small homestay in a remote village 50km from Jaisalmer. Their booking is available only through our website. But I came across a client who booked a dormitory there through Booking.com. Out of curiosity, I called the owner who was not even aware of the development. Firstly, he never went to the website so has no clue who posted. Secondly, he doesn’t have a dormitory,” narrates Shailza.

Though curated, Vishakha still conducts a background check of the travel writers. “I check whether the writer has visited the place or is it just a way to get freebies. Then I create a review format where you have to write about the food, check-in facilities, and the other facilities the place provides,” she says. Professional travel writer Rupali Dean, who writes for various publications, keeps few points in mind while penning a review. “I include a lot of details like talking to locals, asking for places they would go for eating, offbeat places. I even include the travel time and the modes of transport,” she says.

The Home Stays of India corresponds the name to their booking list before publishing the review on the portal. “Person’s name, date, and property they visited are tallied. If the name doesn’t appear, it’s not taken,” explains Shailza. Another travel writer Kamal Sharma makes sure that the review mentions if it has been sponsored or not, and Vishakha vouches for this move. “In Europe, there are strict rules for bloggers where they have to mention whether or not this was a sponsored or paid trip,” she says.

While declaring paid fake reviews as a criminal offense in India will take years, Vishakha suggests a solution that has been adopted by Zomato. “Zomato started flushing out users who were doing five – ten reviews a day. Now, there is a limit to posting reviews a month. Something on these lines can be helpful. Also, travellers need to be more aware of the reviews and not completely rely on ratings. Read a couple of travel blogs and then take a decision,” she says.