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Hostel ratings (fake)

Hostel Reviews, Booking Engines, and Directories

euro started this discussion 14 years 8 months ago

I collected a little on the net, first of all shortly: 2 similar cities:

Nowhere is more than 120 hostel on the world only in Budapest

Budapest Hungary 39 780 Hostel reviews for Budapest Hostels.
Property Type First 10. : 97-97-95%
All types (268) over 88% (50)
Hostels (122)
Hotels (52)
Guesthouses (38)
Apartments (55)

Vienna Austria We have 46032 Hostel reviews for Vienna Hostels.
Property Type First 10.: 95-76% Only 2 is over 88%
All types (71)
Hostels (18)
Hotels (26)
Guesthouses (15)
Apartments (11)

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euro

14 years

More cities:
Nowhere is more than 120 hostel on the world only in Budapest

Budapest 39 780 Hostel reviews for Budapest Hostels.
Property Type First 10. : 97-97-95%
All types (268) over 88% (50)
Hostels (122)
Hotels (52)
Guesthouses (38)
Apartments (55)

New York 54359 Hostel reviews for New York Hostels.
Property Type First 10. : 97-93-79% Over 88% only 4
All types (91)
Hostels (44)
Hotels (13)
Guesthouses (8)
Apartments (26)

London 168 013 Hostel reviews for London
Property Type First 10. : 88-85-81% Over 88% only 1
All types (215)
Hostels (90)
Hotels (94)
Guesthouses (17)
Apartments (14)

Zagreb Croatia We have 5598 Hostel reviews for Zagreb Hostels.
Property Type First 10. : 92-75% Over 88% only 2
All types (40)
Hostels (15)
Hotels (11)
Guesthouses (6)
Apartments (8)

Bucharest, Romania, 2973 Hostel reviews for Bucharest Hostels.
Property Type First 10. : 91-78% Over 88% only 2
All types (67)
Hostels (13)
Hotels (37)
Guesthouses (4)
Apartments (13)

Stockholm Sweden 26221 Hostel reviews for Stockholm Hostels
Property Type First 10. : 88-83% Only 3 has 88% ,over nothing
All types (51)
Hostels (29)
Hotels (13)
Guesthouses (6)
Apartments (3)

Helsinki Finland 3949 Hostel reviews for Helsinki Hostels.
Property Type First 10. : 83-71% Not over 88%
All types (8)
Hostels (4)
Hotels (3)
Guesthouses (0)
Apartments (1)

Dublin Ireland 100784 Hostel reviews for Dublin Hostels.
All types (140) First 10.: 89-81 Only 1 is over 88%
Hostels (31)
Hotels (33)
Guesthouses (65)
Apartments (11)

Vienna Austria We have 46032 Hostel reviews for Vienna Hostels.
Property Type First 10.: 95-76% Only 2 is over 88%
All types (71)
Hostels (18)
Hotels (26)
Guesthouses (15)
Apartments (11)

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euro

14 years

Just an example surfing the net:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g274887-d1626023-r66317947-Oleander_Hostel-Budapest.html
'There is no way that this unprofessional and very bad service could get good ratings as published on hostelbookers, hostelworld, or elsewhere. So, most of these good ratings must have been FAKED by him to attract travelers to his hostel. Don’t believe those FAKE reviews and ratings!!! I saw only one small traveler groups (3 persons) and another single traveler'
from:ind_traveler_03 1 contribution
Zurich, Switzerland
Jun 1, 2010 | Trip type: Solo travel

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euro

14 years

Just 1 more example:
Not only the 98% hostels using fake reviews, but the lower rated aswell.
Museum Guest house 2 has only 77%, at Karoly korut 10.
Anybody can go there, they are closed. However they have a sign down, but if you go up you can realize, it is closed, rusted locks
if you look in the windows you can see a renovation for months.
3 weeks ago same, yesterday same.
Look the miracle: from 29th May til 31th May lot of good rating, Where they stayed?

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euro

14 years

I am very sorry that this suspicious is now not only on hostelworld, but hostelbookers aswell.

One newcomer hostel rated in last weeks for about 99.5% the ratings are from names like Istvan ... (which is hungarian name) , I checked the house is near terrible traffic ,main street, can be very noisy, house is old and smell terrible, about 100 years old, reconstructed long ago awful block house. Some of the tourist quit before entering such houses. Nice hanging on the windows and flowers, but this I dont think enough for 99.5% (envoy)

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euro

14 years

Getting worse and worse (more fake higher ratings), because the season is coming.

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Josh Hostels

14 years

Getting worse and worse (more fake higher ratings), because the season is coming.

You've made your point :)
I'm guessing Hostelworld and Hostelbookers will read this and look into it, especially if you have contacted them directly.

I'm sure that many hostels cheat, but it's not impossible for many hostels to get ratings in the 90s (%). I've visited some of the 90+% hostels personally and saw hostels that were worthy of their ratings...

I'm not sure what else can be done about it except by the booking engines...

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euro

14 years

You are right.
Sure, we dont have much possibilities.
They could not be able to control that.
The only possibility if they change on the system to that direction that the rating is not the base of the booking, only information for decision

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euro

14 years

What is unrealistic?
Look examples:
For tomorrow no occupation (every rooms are empty) at the top of the list.
Before yesterday and 5th july 5 reviews from a 6 bed dormitory, how is possibile?
Will be 5 reviews from the 9th of july, could be if they book all at night in one hour ...
Because of the world cup(futball) not full the hostels, but more reviews coming.
Look Budapest (my favourite worst case study):
Enjoy, Happy flat, Oleander

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Scotch Argus

14 years

Interestingly one of those hostels had a 95% fun rating on HB, and 75% on HW, and a 93% cleanliness on HB and 78% on HW. Perhaps HW customers are more picky than HB? Keep up the good work Euro, you're doing a great job! Obviously the only people that can do anything about cheating (if indeed it is happening) are the booking engines themselves. If it were true that there are large numbers of fake bookings, then the engines are getting good money in deposits from them. One could almost imagine a scenario in a place were a "ratings war" happened amongst many competitive hostels generating significant money in deposits for the booking engines. That is assuming that cheating is indeed taking place - I have no idea if it is or isn't.

My personal opinion is that to get above 93% over a large number of reviews, you must have a fantastic place. Many reviewers we get are reluctant to leave anywhere near 100%. We just got one where he left a very positive comment about how good we were, and the review of 76%. If you get more than a few of these it's very hard to get in the 90% range. I guess that the most important thing is to connect personally with the guest, so they won't leave a bad review as want to do the right thing for you.

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Josh Hostels

14 years

Obviously the only people that can do anything about cheating (if indeed it is happening) are the booking engines themselves.

It should be fairly easy to write an algorithm to detect cheating. Make a list of characteristics of cheating. Examples:

typically only booking for only one night (though possibly more -- look for patterns)
100% rating (or at least 90%)
credit card name and billing address should be recorded (credit card number not necessary to record)
IP address (though not necessarily reliable by itself)
etc.

Once you have data you can mine it for patterns and learn more about characteristics of cheating.

Then weigh each review (e.g., +20 points if factor "A" exists -- if total is above 50 points, for example, flag for someone to manually look at it before publishing it). Look for things like:

repeat bookings by a single credit card name/address (not credit card number because people have more than one credit card)
rating discrepancies between guests who book for 4+ nights and guests who only book one night online. If guests who only book one night average 98% rating and guests who book for 4+ nights average 78% rating, raise a flag for manual review.
country of credit card billing address. Look for people from own country booking hostels in own country. Many of these hostels have over 100 reviews -- to manipulate that, you need a lot of 100% reviews. If you need 100 fake reviews to get top ratings, then it should be easy to detect them.
etc.

Once a system like that is in place, it could flag suspicious reviews for manual review before publishing. Most fake reviews would never get published and hostels would get a warning not to do it again. (If it is even happening on a large scale.)

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