ÖHV finds low trust in anonymous reviews

Few products are as emotional as holidays, hardly anything is as important to people as the “most wonderful time of the year”. This is why hotel review platforms work well. “Or rather, they 'worked' well. “That’s probably history,” emphasizes Markus Gratzer, Secretary General of the Austrian Hotel Association. Because now the misconduct of hotel reviewers is pulling the rug out from under the platforms.

The opinion researchers from Mindtake asked 1.045 Austrians for the ÖHV whether they had already seen fake reviews on platforms. 2/3 say yes. Almost 30% have not seen any fake reviews or recognized them as such: “You don’t have to read fake reviews yourself to fall for them. Even those who see the overall rating of a hotel are distorted and therefore prefer to scroll further or do not see the entry at all because it slides further back, will also become a victim of fake ratings just like the hotel.”

Only one in five trusts anonymous reviews

The ÖHV also asked whether Austrians trust anonymous reviews. A good third have little or no trust, almost every second person gives an undecided C according to the school grading system: “So much indecision! Sure, if you don’t know how many reviews are real and how many are fake,” says Gratzer. Just 3% have a high level of trust, 4,4% give the platforms a B in the compulsory trust subject. “These values ​​will of course give the platforms something to think about. “Also because they are not getting any better given the increasing number of fake reviews and especially AI bots,” says Gratzer: “Problems don’t disappear if you look away. On the contrary, they are increasing.”