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Travel reviews: Real or Fake?

One of the criticisms of travel review websites is that they can be manipulated by people to either build up their own reputation or tear down the reputation of a competitor.  We are sure that most of these websites do their best to avoid this happening since their reputation (and their income) derives from people trusting that the information provided on their site is honest and accurate.

Still, they can be manipulated.  We want to pass on an article written by Arthur Frommer, the venerable travel guide publisher about a restaurant that got great reviews for a period of several months on a major travel review website despite the fact that it did not exist.  

So by all means visit those travel review websites.  They will give you a general idea if an attraction, restaurant or tour company is reliable….just don’t use that as your only resource.  Do some additional research.  

This is why we offer tips on how to choose a Catholic tour company, ways to check on a company’s reputation and how to evaluate an itinerary on our main website.  It will help greatly if you can make an informed decision based on solid information from more than one source.

1 thought on “Travel reviews: Real or Fake?”

  1. I read recently that Tripadvisor is actually setting up dummy websites in order to lure un-scrupulous reviewers. Apparently there are some companies out there that offer to give restaurants & hotels great reviews for a fee. Tripadvisor has a fraud detection team that works to filter out fake reviews. It is naturally in their best interest to do so since they are the giant of the travel review websites.

    One piece of advice that I have heard is to ignore the really good reviews and the really bad reviews as possibly being fake or maliscious. Not sure that is a great way to do it.

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