MPH 2008

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From Times Online

May 16, 2008

Tripadvisor.com: how we deal with rogue hotel reviews

Ginny McGrath speaks to founder Stephen Kaufer about rivals, phoney reviews and his favourite hotel

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Ginny McGrath

I have come to rely heavily on tripadvisor reviews when travel planning and have always been very impressed with their accuracy. The key is not to base any opinions on just one or two reviews. Do your due diligence, read as many reviews as you can, look for patterns, and you won't be disappointed.

Stacey, Mansfield, USA

I have only checked out one hotel on Tripadvisor...the Camelot Castle Hotel in Tintagel, Cornwall. The disparity between the shocking bad reviews (some with photos) and the plethora of fantastic reviews (no photos) rather damns the claims of Stephen Kaufer.

James, Monteria, Colombia

I always use tripadvsor before booking a hotel, transfer or just to get advice/ideas - yes you need to check reviewer history but with plenty of genuine people adding comments it is easy to see those that appear to be inconsistent.

I have found it to be a great site and am a big fan

sue, Chichester, UK

Every hotel writes fake reviews fro themselves and their competition - so that why companies like tripadvisor arent worth looking at!

J Jones, Oswestry,

I used to work for a U.S. comparison-shopping site as a writer. It was my full-time job to write reviews for products, hotels, resorts, etc. that I had never used or visited. Eventually the company fired its U.S. writing staff and replaced us with writers in India. This practice is very prevalent.

Kait Marcus, San Francisco, U.S.