TripAdvisor forced to remove 'honest opinion' claims

THE TRAVEL website TripAdvisor has today been ordered to remove marketing slogans claiming that it offers "honest" advice from "real" travellers. The order came from the UK's Advertising Standards Agency (ASA). 

TripAdvisor, which brands itself the largest travel community in the world and uses customer reviews to generate its content, had attempted to claim that every one of its more than 50m reviews and opinions was unbiased and genuine.

These claims were challenged by two hotels and KwikChek, a company which manages hotels' on-line profiles.

As reported in The Guardian, the complainants pointed out that the system is not beyond abuse and could be misused by - for example - business rivals keen to sabotage a competitor's image. The Daily Mail found that attempts had even been made to "blackmail small hotels with threats to post negative reviews" via the site.

The hotels' complaints were upheld by the ASA who, in what The Daily Telegraph described as a "strongly worded letter", said the website's claims that it contained "reviews you can trust" and "honest opinions" were impossible to substantiate.

The BBC points out that the ASA did note the "advanced and highly effective fraud systems" TripAdvisor employs in an effort to weed out fake content. The standards agency also acknowledged a declaration reviewers have to sign to guarantee their input is genuine and that they have no commercial incentive for making their contribution.

Ultimately, however, it was felt that it was impossible to prove nothing untoward could slip through the net, so the company will no longer be able to make boasts such as hosting "50 million honest travel reviews and opinions from real travellers".

An ASA spokesman said the decision should be regarded as "a benchmark ruling which applies to all websites which make claims about the reliability of their user-created content".

At the time of posting, TripAdvisor had taken down the contested claims, describing itself instead as "the world's largest travel site". ·