A study conducted amongst just more than 1000 German travellers in December 2013 and January 2014, and with input from 1500 hotels in European countries, has found that travel review sites are believed to contain fake reviews of tourist attractions, restaurants, and accommodation!

The Worms University of Applied Sciences in Germany evaluated the reliance of travel review sites, their credibility, and consumer requirements.  The findings of the study were the following:

*   Reviews are consulted by one in two travellers, half of these recognising that they should handle them with ‘care‘.

*   Half of travellers say reviews are an important input to making accommodation decisions, but friends’ recommendations and the establishments’ website influence their decision too.

*   Twitter followers, Facebook friends, customer reviews on review sites, YouTube views, and blogposts on blogs can be bought.

*   The majority of travellers read up to 20 reviews

*    The majority of review readers consider reviews to be credible, but content must be credible

*   Reviews are not credible if they are unlike all others, and if their wording is not believable. Videos and photographs add to credibility, as does the recency of the review.

*   The majority of travellers feed back that the reviews reflected what they experienced, and 20% even said that the establishments were better than the reviews reflected.

*  If they doubt a review, they will not book the establishment.

*  Fake reviews are definitely included in review sites, confirm more than a third of travellers and hoteliers, with another third stating that fake reviews are probable.

*   The majority of hotels encourage reviews from travellers at Reception, or telephonically, by e-mail, or letter.

*   German hotels spend 5 hours per month reading their reviews, and 3 hours to read those of their competitors.

*   Less than a fifth of hotels use software to manage the reviews.

*  Half of European hotels confirm that they have experienced fake reviews.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com  Twitter: @WhaleCottage