"Get the truth, then go" is the mantra of TripAdvisor, the world's largest travel-review website, which only makes the following all the more alarming.
Log on to its website and type the words "racist" or "racism" into the search engine and you might be surprised by what you find: together they crop up more than 2,300 times in reviews. "Pervert/perverted" features in 353 reviews, "homophobic/homophobia" in 295, "rapist" in 33, and "paedophile" in 10. Often these defamatory terms are used to describe hotel or restaurant staff, b & b owners, waiters and receptionists.
"There is a real risk of getting raped here," wrote one reviewer of a hotel in Munich; "the proprietor … is one of the worst paedophile priests", said another of a guesthouse in Scotland; "the woman that runs this bar is a racist – fact!"
Can we be sure that these reviews really are the "truth"?
TripAdvisor is also awash with references to food poisoning (10,951), bed bugs (31,429), assault (1,064) and theft (7,554) – accusations that leave an indelible stain on the establishment concerned, but which can be made without a shred of evidence.
Reviews are the words of "trusted members of the travel community", according to TripAdvisor – and yet no checks are made on the identity of the people who post them and no proof of stay is needed.
In fact, all that is required to upload these travel "truths" is an anonymous username and email address (which can easily be faked).
"Our policy clearly states that, in addition to profanity, no hate speech, sexually explicit language or graphic reports of violent criminal activity will be tolerated. We are a proponent of free speech and we believe many aspects of a traveller's experiences are valid travel-planning considerations," said a spokesman for TripAdvisor.
Only a decade after it was founded, TripAdvisor last month became the first travel website to achieve more than 40 million unique visitors in a month. From the outset its warts-and-all accounts were applauded for shaking up a complacent hotel industry. Instead of glossy brochures and toned-down guidebook reviews, travellers suddenly had access to real accounts, from real people, paying real money.
The Daily Telegraph