How does HolidayCheck take action against fake reviews?
Hotel reviews from former guests play an invaluable role when planning a holiday and choosing a hotel. But only authentic reviews can help with the decision. Our motto at HolidayCheck is therefore: zero tolerance for fake reviews.
HolidayCheck - Our action against review fraud
We are constantly working on our review systems - be it using artificial intelligence or a large team of colleagues who are solely concerned with the quality of the reviews. The end result proves us right: 78 per cent of all incoming reviews are classified as authentic and published. 7 per cent are not published due to suspected fakes.
But simply excluding fakes is not enough for us! We consistently pursue buyers and providers of fake reviews with all the means at our disposal. We take particularly tough action against the latter, because review fraud is fraud against customer. We are also committed to ensuring that the sale of fake reviews will be subject to criminal law in future, so that the perpetrators can be prosecuted much more effectively.
The review process
Before it is posted online, each review first goes through a review process. When submitting a review, holidaymakers first receive an email which they must confirm. If no confirmation is received, the review is automatically rejected. This affects around 8 per cent of all incoming reviews.
After confirmation by email, the review is analysed by a technical review system based on up to 119 parameters.
In 61 per cent of cases, the technical check is successfully completed and the review is published on HolidayCheck.
5 per cent are rejected in the first stage and not published. This applies, for example, to duplicate reviews.
In 26 per cent of reviews, the technical review system detects anomalies, for example in the email or IP address. These reviews are then checked manually by members of the 40-strong quality team. The doubts can be cleared up in around 16 per cent of cases and the review is published. 10 per cent of the manually checked reviews are classified as suspicious and remain offline. A total of over 12 million reviews can currently be found on the HolidayCheck booking and review portal. All of these reviews were created by former holidaymakers for future holidaymakers. The aim behind this is to offer a decision-making aid for holiday planning and booking based on personal experience. But only authentic reviews really help.
Verified reviewers
We automatically mark reviews from holidaymakers who book via HolidayCheck with the words "Verified stay". The same applies to reviews from holidaymakers who have not booked with us but have subsequently provided proof. For us, every opinion is equally valuable, which is why HolidayCheck is an open portal. This means that anyone who has used the services of a hotel can rate it. This is precisely why it is so important that our review process is particularly strict.
Reviews without influence
This Code of Conduct is a framework for hotel managers that specifies the options and restrictions in handling hotel reviews at HolidayCheck. In the following article you can find answers to frequently asked questions about the collection of reviews and the organisation of review days and campaigns.