Despite nearly nine out of 10 reviews (87.8%) meeting standards for publication, influential travel review site TripAdvisor says it continues to fight ever-evolving fraudulent schemes in its domain, which now includes misleading communication generated by artificial intelligence.
In the fourth edition of its Transparency Report, Tripadvisor details the company’s ongoing efforts to ensure its platform remains “a trusted source for global travel guidance.” Released every two years, the report analyzes the prior year’s global community contributions, offering a deep dive into global submissions and highlighting shifting review trends.
The company, which is celebrating 25 years, shared nearly 80 million contributions from users in 2024 via the Tripadvisor website and app, a 9% increase from the last report. This included 31.1 million reviews and 38.1 million photos and videos. Notably, the platform experienced a significant surge in reviews for experiences, attractions and activities – up 45% from the last report – as this category continues to grow in popularity.
Community engagement also remained extremely high in 2024. Tripadvisor business owners responded to over 11 million reviews, while members responded to 257,000 questions from fellow travellers. Tripadvisor’s forums remain a popular place to learn about destinations and discuss travel, with almost 2.6 million posts published last year.
Reviews submitted to Tripadvisor can be subject to three review moderation processes, including automation, human oversight, and community input to ensure content integrity and fairness. Around nine out of 10 reviews (87.8%) met automation standards for posting in 2024, with 7.3% rejected through technological analysis and 4.9% flagged for further review by moderators. A Trust and Safety team moderated 4.2 million (13.5% of all reviews) either before or after posting.
Fighting fake reviews, review boosting and blackmail
Tripadvisor says it continues to tackle fraudulent activity, including fake reviews that are designed to manipulate business listings’ ratings and rankings. Through a combination of advanced technology, human analysis, and community engagement, Tripadvisor sasy it successfully safeguarded travellers from 2.7 million fraudulent reviews in 2024.
‘Review boosting,’ where business owners, employees, or anyone affiliated with a business posts positive reviews to boost their own rankings, accounted for the majority of fake review submissions (54% of total fraud in 2024).
Around 9,000 businesses received warnings for engaging in incentivized reviews, which is where businesses ‘bribe’ customers or ‘reward’ employees for positive reviews. In fact, 360,000 removed reviews were linked to employee incentive programs, where businesses offer rewards to their own staff in exchange for positive reviews.
With fraudulent review schemes evolving, Tripadvisor has strengthened its fraud detection models and reinforced policies that lead to penalizing businesses on our platform in a bid to “stay one step ahead of the bad actors.”
It further notes it has processes in place to make sure that any business listed on Tripadvisor is protected from threats such as blackmail and threatening behaviour, which included removing removed 814 reviews associated with such reports in 2024.
The Impact of Generative AI
Tripadvisor says generative AI is having a noticeable impact on submissions posted to the platform and 214,000 AI-generated reviews were flagged and removed in 2024 to prevent misleading content.
“Our approach to AI-generated content is rooted in maintaining traveller trust in opinions shared on our platform,” said Becky Foley, Head of Trust & Safety at Tripadvisor. “While AI has many benefits, removing reviews identified as being written by AI helps our users avoid a ‘sea of sameness’ on Tripadvisor, allowing them to discover truly unique insights from fellow travellers.”
As a way to continue to collaborate and lead in the review space, Tripadvisor has joined forces with other major online platforms to establish the Coalition for Trusted Reviews. The global initiative, founded alongside Amazon, Expedia Group, Glassdoor, Booking.com and Trustpilot, focuses on industry-wide standards to define and prevent fake reviews; best practice sharing for content moderation; collaborative fraud detection efforts and policy advocacy to support stronger consumer protections.
“As the world’s largest travel guidance platform, no one has a greater commitment to ensuring that the content on our site is reliable and trustworthy,” stated Foley. “While many companies are scaling back their Trust and Safety efforts, Tripadvisor remains steadfast in prioritizing trust. These actions reaffirm our unwavering commitment to consumer protection and our leadership in the travel industry through integrity and innovation.”
If this article was shared with you by a friend or colleague, you may enjoy receiving your own copy of Travel Industry Today with the latest travel news and reviews each weekday morning. It’s absolutely free – just CLICK HERE.