Fake Reviews on Booking.com and Tripadvisor: Risks and How to Raise Your Score

You can't realistically fake reviews on Booking.com: only guests who booked through Booking and arrived at the property can leave one, and fake reviews that are found get deleted. On Tripadvisor, properties caught boosting reviews have their ranking penalized for a year, and repeat offenders get a red warning badge on their listing. Fake reviews are also illegal in the EU (since 2022) and the US (since 2024). What actually lifts a hotel's score is real guests, fixed weak spots and good replies to reviews. Here is how that works.

Are there fake reviews on Booking.com?

Booking.com's review guidelines make faking hard by design:

• only guests who booked through Booking.com and stayed at the property (or arrived but didn't stay) can write a review;
• reviews are accepted within 3 months of check-out, and the invitation is sent after the stay;
• properties may not post reviews on guests' behalf or offer incentives in exchange for reviews;
• staff and automated systems look for fake reviews; those found are deleted, and action may be taken against the person responsible.

So the only way to "boost" Booking reviews is fake bookings, which breaks the rules, costs real commission and puts your partnership at risk. If you spot a suspicious review as a guest, you can report it to Booking's customer service, whose fraud team investigates.

How the Booking.com review score is calculated

• Guests give an overall score from 1 to 10. The property's score is the average of those scores, with recent reviews weighted more heavily.
• Subscores such as cleanliness, location and staff are submitted separately and aren't directly tied to the overall score, but every future guest sees them.
• Older reviews lose weight as new ones come in, and reviews may stop being shown after 36 months or a change of ownership.

In practice, your score is a rolling verdict from recent guests: improve the stay, and within a few months the number follows.

Tripadvisor fake reviews: how they are caught and what happens

Tripadvisor publishes a transparency report every two years. The 2025 edition (covering 2024) says 31.1 million reviews were submitted and about 2.7 million, roughly 8%, were fraudulent. More than 200,000 suspected AI-written reviews were removed, and about 9,000 businesses were warned over incentivized reviews. More than half of all fraud was "review boosting" by owners, staff or affiliates.

Under Tripadvisor's guidelines:

• owners, current and former employees, their friends and relatives, suppliers and nearby competitors in the same category may not review the property;
• offering anything in exchange for a review is banned, whatever the rating: discounts, free drinks, prize draws;
• review gating (asking only happy guests and steering unhappy ones to a private survey) is prohibited;
• penalties include ranking drops (for a year, according to Tripadvisor's head of trust and safety), a red badge for repeat offenders and exclusion from Travellers' Choice awards.

Are fake reviews illegal? EU and US rules

• EU: the Omnibus Directive (2019/2161), applied since 28 May 2022, added submitting or commissioning fake reviews, and misrepresenting reviews, to the list of banned commercial practices. Traders that show reviews must say whether and how they check that the reviews come from real customers.
• US: the FTC's rule on consumer reviews and testimonials took effect on 21 October 2024. It bans buying and selling fake reviews, reviews from people who don't exist, undisclosed insider reviews and paying for reviews with a particular sentiment, with civil penalties per violation.

How to improve your Booking.com and Tripadvisor rating honestly

• Read your last 30–50 reviews and list the repeat complaints: noise, Wi-Fi, breakfast, cleanliness. Fixing one frequent issue does more than any review campaign.
• Keep the listing honest. Most low scores are about expectations. Accurate room photos and clear notes on parking, stairs or distance to the centre prevent disappointment.
• Send a pre-arrival message with directions, parking and breakfast times. Small things at check-in shape the first impression.
• Check in during the stay. A quick "Is everything OK?" on day two lets you fix problems before they become a review.
• Ask every guest at check-out and in a post-stay email, with no incentives and no filtering. Booking sends its own invitation; for Tripadvisor, share the link to your listing.

To rely less on commissions, build social media and direct bookings alongside the platforms; see the hotel section of our guide to social media for small business. For map reviews, read how to get more Google Maps reviews honestly.

How to respond to hotel reviews: examples

• Positive review: thank the guest by name and add a detail. "Thank you, Anna! We're glad you enjoyed breakfast on the terrace. Next summer we're adding a pancake station too."
• Negative review: acknowledge the problem, say what changed and invite them to continue privately. "We're sorry about the noise from the bar. We now close it at 10 pm and have sealed the windows on that side. Please email us so we can talk about your stay."
• Don't argue, don't reveal guest details and never offer compensation in exchange for editing a review.

On Booking.com, replies are moderated and published only in the review's language or in English: in the extranet, open Guest reviews and select Reply. On Tripadvisor, reply from your owner account. More tips on tone are in our article on handling negative reviews.

Can you remove a review on Booking.com or Tripadvisor?

Owners can't delete a guest's review. If a review breaks the rules, for example insults, personal data, a different property or a suspected fake from a competitor, report it: on Booking.com through customer support, whose fraud team checks suspicious reviews, and on Tripadvisor through your owner account. Honest criticism, however unpleasant, will stay up. The best answer to it is a calm reply and a fixed problem.