Bed and breakfast owners urged to help fight malicious and fake reviews
B&B owners are being urged to share their experiences of negative and fake reviews as part of a major Government probe.
The Competition and Markets Authority has launched an investigation into online review sites to check the information posted is ‘genuine, relevant and trustworthy’.
It has invited the travel industry to submit its experiences – good or bad – by March 25.
In a specific appeal this week, the B&B Association called on B&B operators to submit their experiences by the deadline, especially if they’ve had trouble dealing with reviews which are malicious or fake.
"We often have members who have had negative reviews that are clearly unearned and false, having a detrimental effect on their much-loved businesses," said David Weston, chief executive of the B&B Association, which represents the 25,000 B&Bs and guest houses in the UK.
"At present there is no way for our members to remove reviews or challenge the individuals behind them, if the websites themselves (as they often do) refuse to remove a false review.
"We’d like to see a situation where small businesses are given the chance to protect their valuable reputations that have often been established through hard work before sites like TripAdvisor even entered the public psyche."
To make a submission, see the CMA website.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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