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Why relying on online travel reviews may not be a good option when planning a vacation

Travel reviews are one of the first things you look up when planning a trip. Aside from family and friends providing you with their first-hand experiences, you usually do your research online and depend on other people’s experiences and comments regarding a particular hotel or resort. It is actually a great way to explore your options; unfortunately, travel website reviews are not as reliable nowadays.

With competition being stiff in the tourism market, some travel operators have been faking reviews to lure travelers to their hotel or resort, making travel review websites not as reliable as they used to be.  The internet provides them an opportunity to provide fake reviews although in reality, the hotel or resort needs a lot of improvement. There have been investigations regarding this issue, and there have been reports of hotels “buying” positive reviews to attract travelers. To quote the Daily Mail, “ the fake review industry is putting at risk over $35 billion in annual vacations by Britons”, and that “TripAdvisor receives 70 reviews every minute, with more than 100 million reviews on the site at any one time, with 230 million online visitors each month". It only shows the importance of travel review veracity in the industry. On the other hand, there are customers or “fake” reviewers who will post horrendous reviews about a certain hotel or resort to destroy its reputation, and for some customers, to be given free accommodations or perks just so they can change their reviews. 

Although there is really no clear-cut way to know if the review is fake or not, you might be able to spot some fake reviews by checking the reviewer's previous posts, and by scrutinizing the reviews of the hotel or resort have received. Be on the lookout for reviewers who have not posted anything positively, and back read all the reviews so you get a clearer picture of how it is rated by a number of customers. In addition, do some research and get more information from a number of travel review websites. By doing so, you can weigh the pros and cons.

Your travel agent is the best resource when you need more information and an honest opinion about the hotel or resort. Consult Jubilee Travel https://www.jubileeonline.ca/ for more details and assistance. 

By Sunshine Silva

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