CNBC's Travel Editor Monica Pitrelli takes a closer look at dodgy reviews on travel sites, and identifies four top categories of fake submissions in this report.

Council of the City of Sydney

Online travel reviews are widely used by travelers, but a significant portion are fake. According to TripAdvisor's latest transparency report, about 2.7 million out of over 31 million reviews submitted in 2024 were deemed fraudulent, representing 8 to 9 percent of total reviews. This figure is double the number detected in the previous report from 2022, which TripAdvisor attributes to improved detection methods rather than a surge in fake reviews.

TripAdvisor employs a three-part detection process: automated detection, human analysis, and a community dispute system. The platform identifies four main types of fake reviews: boosting (positive reviews from affiliates), vandalism (negative reviews from competitors), member fraud (improper or irrelevant reviews by unrelated individuals), and paid reviews, often originating from 'review farms.' The Asia-Pacific region, particularly Indonesia and Vietnam, is noted for a higher proportion of paid fake reviews. TripAdvisor's detection relies on analyzing posting patterns rather than review content, using data points generated by suspected fake submissions.

How to catch fake travel reviews

Well many travelers and probably even you and myself have used online reviews to help plan for your overseas or domestic holiday trip. However, how many of those reviews are fake? Well let's get to see Mrs. Travel Editor Monica Petrelli who's been doing a little bit of deep dive digging. What have you found Monica? That's right. So reviews very much depended on by travelers but also we know that some portion of them are fake. But just how many? Will TripAdvisor attempted to answer this very question in its latest transparency report. In it we see that in 2024 some 2.7 million reviews contributed to the site were deemed fake by the company. That's of more than 31 million. So between 8 to 9 percent. But what's more than that is this is twice the number that the company detected back in 2022, the last time it issued this report. So what's happening? Is this just a surge of fakes? Well not necessarily says TripAdvisor. It says it's taking a more aggressive stance against fakes these days. Especially those called incentivized reviews. This is where a company provides you a discount or a freebie in exchange for a review. But also TripAdvisor says that its own detection system is getting much better. Now this system is built on a three-part process. First auto detection. This is where most fake reviews are caught. It says followed by human analysis and finally a community dispute process once reviews are up. Now here most will remain. About 28 percent that go through this process are then pulled down. When we talk about fakes well what are we talking about? There's four broad categories TripAdvisor says. You've got boosting. This is where a company will someone associated with a company writes positive things on its behalf. Vandalism where a competitor writes negative things. Now TripAdvisor saying a lot of people think most fakes belong to this vandalizing category. No it's actually a small percentage. A much bigger piece of the pie is this member fraud. Here someone without any financial interests writes a review that's simply improper or irrelevant. And then finally we have the paid reviews. Now Becky Foley she leads the trust and safety team at TripAdvisor's called this a small but pernicious category of fakes. And that is because this can be done by what she called review farms. These are actors that are typically involved in other types of online fraud as well. Now interestingly if we look worldwide we can see Asia responsible for about 17 percent of review contributions to TripAdvisor in 2024. That's both the real and fake. However when we look at the paid reviews far more of those coming from Asia-Pacific being led there by Indonesia and Vietnam. It's back to you. Yeah so number one why would they do this? I mean irrelevant to motivations to those people. I mean what is their motivation to put up a fake reviews and how does the company determine that certain reviews are actually fake? Yes so this category of member fraud interestingly this could be this is a big umbrella but you could have somebody advertising their own services. I say photography services. Also we know we have situations where negative publicity goes across social media. So this could be people that attempt to take companies down. We know this is a big factor on Yelp reviews. Apparently the same thing happening on TripAdvisor. Now how these fakes are located I spent a long time talking with the company about this very issue. They say or the TripAdvisor says they're using their own technology. This is something developed over 25 years and it relies a lot less on what a review actually says and more on patterns that are developed by how it is posted. And I can give you an example. TripAdvisor says it has investigators that will pose as paid review brokers. Once somebody bites on that and post the first paid review it's not that TripAdvisor goes after that bad actor. Of course this could be someone located anywhere in the world. Rather that one post releases hundreds of data points that then TripAdvisor can then use to establish those patterns to find other fake reviews around its site.

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