Tripadvisor.com has defended the integrity of its hotel reviews following suggestions at a conference today that fraudulent reviews are still being published.

The robust defence by senior executive Marc Charron was two-fold. Firstly, he claimed that the site is getting more sophisticated at detecting false reviews - and secondly that its readers are savvy enough to ignore bogus entries.

It’s not the first time that Tripadvisor has been called to account over its veracity. As the largest website for user hotel reviews, the site receives around 1,400 reviews a day, and in the past has been criticised for allowing reviews to be published that are not posted by genuine guests.

In its defence the site has always claimed that it has sophisticated algorithms that detect abuse, and that it carries out spot checks and investigates reports of abuse by its readers.

But going one step further today Charron, Tripadvisor's managing director for Europe, told a gathering of travel executives at the EyeForTravel conference in London that “no reviews go unmoderated”.

"We have been doing this for seven years, with millions of bits of information and no-one goes on the site being unmoderated... algorithms can spot fraudulent behaviour. We have become quite good at it, and it is a nothing issue.

"The wider issue is whether it is eroding trust? Surveys say 82 per cent trust public user reviews. Nobody trusts them all as people don't share other people's values. People realise this. If you come to the site with the right level of scepticsm, you can still go away with the information you want. People are smart."

He later confirmed to Times Online Travel that each review that is submitted is read by a member of the Tripadvisor team and a confirmation email sent to the sender.

While Tripadvisor would not divulge the secrets of how its team identify fraudulent reviews, a spokesman told Times Online Travel that the language and useage patterns of reviewers are investigated.

Further to this Charron said that Tripadvisor users are policing the site better than ever: “People come to us with the right level of scepticism but still get what they want from our reviews. If they see something suspicious they will notify us.”

Also speaking at the same event was Brian Pratt from Starwood, a hotels group that includes Sheraton and Westin hotels. He said that his staff are encouraged to post reviews, photos and videos on Tripadvisor, but added that they are told to make it clear that they work at the relevant hotel. Pratt added: “The last thing we want is to be named in forums as seeding reviews about our hotels.”

Further to this news, Tripadvisor announced today that it has bought Cruise Critic, the leading online cruise community. The site receives five million visitors per year from travellers who discuss and research cruise holidays. In addition Cruise Critic features articles written by its staff on cruise ships and itineraries.

It marks a new direction for Tripadvisor into cruises, a sector that is considered among travel industry insiders to be booming – infact, research published this week suggests that cruise websites receive more traffic from internet users aged over 55 than any other age group. The statistics from internet monitors Hitwise found that cruise websites receive 48 per cent of their traffic from over 55s, an age group which is set to overtake 35 to 44-year-olds as the demographic with the largest representation online.

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