“We have shown the evidence that if there are more Airbnb listings available around high-end hotels, those hotels tend to self-promote more by posting fake positive ratings. Managers at high-end hotels recognize this. They’re more likely to scroll through the reviews to look for any red flags before booking a room. 'A lot of people who stay at low-end hotels are less likely to pay attention to reviews compared to people trying to decide if a $500 resort is worth their money,” said Nie.Ĭustomers who are paying more or are choosing a hotel for the experience of staying there have higher expectations, he added. To help explain this, Nie shared that low-end hotels generally have a smaller volume of customer reviews and rely on them less to fill rooms compared to high-end hotels. The tendency to post fake reviews, whether positive or negative, stayed the same. The authors described this shift among hotels as “co-opetition instead of tit-for-tat.”Īs for low-end hotels, the researchers found Airbnb did not have an effect. Without the fake, negative reviews from their competing hotels, their overall ratings skewed higher. But badmouthing other hotels with similar price points dropped off. They found pressure from Airbnb listings led high-end hotels to increase their fake, positive reviews. They focused on the eight-year period following Airbnb’s launch in 2008 to see if this new form of competition changed how hotels manipulated reviews. Nie and his team decided to expand on these findings. This “review manipulation” was highest among independent hotels in competitive markets. Hotel managers created fake customer reviews to boost their ratings and drag down their competitors. “We know hotels adapted to the competition with Airbnb by lowering prices, but we wanted to know if there was something else hotels were doing,” said Nie.īefore Airbnb emerged as a global player in the hospitality industry, several studies found between 15% and 30% of online reviews for hotels were made up. Researchers found high-end hotels often inflate their ratings when they face greater competition from Airbnb.Ĭheng Nie, assistant professor of information systems and business analytics at Iowa State University, co-authored the paper published in MIS Quarterly. Newswise - AMES, IA – You may want to take online reviews with a grain of salt the next time you plan a vacation.

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