Section:GDN 1N PaGe:17 Edition Date:190906 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 5/9/2019 19:26 cYanmaGentaYellowbl
Friday 6 September 2019 The Guardian •
National^17
PA Media
The travel website TripAdvisor is
failing to stop fake reviews boosting
the rankings of its top-rated hotels,
Which? has claimed.
The consumer organisation ana-
lysed almost 250,000 reviews for the
top 10 ranked hotels in 10 popular tour-
ist destinations around the world, and
found one in seven had the “blatant
hallmarks” of fake reviews.
Which? Travel reported 15 cases
to TripAdvisor and claimed the site
admitted that 14 of them had already
been found to have received fake pos-
itive reviews in the last year.
It said TripAdvisor revealed that
six of these hotels had been penal-
ised for breaking guidelines and two
had previously been given a “red
badge” warning for suspicious activity,
PA MediaThe pink dress worn by the act or Jodie
Comer in her Bafta-winning role as
the assassin Villanelle in Killing Eve
will be among the highlights of a free
behind-the-scenes exhibition open-
ing this month.
Fans of Phoebe Waller-Bridge ’s hit
TV show will be able to see costume
designs from the fi rst series , including
the pink Molly Goddard dress paired
with Balenciaga boots, a Dries Van
Noten suit and a blue Burberry dress.
The outfi ts are part of an exhibi-
tion featuring scripts , audio-visual
displays, models and costumes from
a range of British dramas at Bafta’s
temporary headquarters in Picca-
dilly, London.
Visitors to Bafta: Behind the
Screens can also explore hair and
make up designs for The Favourite,
see Chiwetel Ejiofor ’s preparation for
his role in 12 Years a Slave, and high-
lights from children’s TV series such
as The Clangers.
The show will be open to the public
at Bafta Piccadilly from 17 September.but this had not been made clear to
travellers.
One hotel , rated as the bes t in Jor-
dan, had a “hugely suspicious” pattern
of reviews, Which? said, adding that
the unnamed hotel denied any wrong-
doing. TripAdvisor subsequently
removed 730 of its fi ve-star ratings.
At the “best hotel in Cairo”, accord-
ing to TripAdvisor’s traveller rankings,
some 79% of fi ve-star reviews were
left by profi les that had made no other
contributions to the site. After Which?
shared its findings, TripAdvisor
removed reviews from the property
and it lost its status as Cairo’s best
hotel, the consumer organisation said.
In Las Vegas, two of the 10 highest-
ranked hotels got almost half (48%
and 41%) of their hundreds of fi ve-
star ratings from fi rst-time reviewers
who had not made any other contri-
butions before or since , Which? said.
A TripAdvisor spokesman said: “It
is simply far too simplistic to assume
all fi rst-time reviewers are suspicious.
Every genuine reviewer in the world
is at some point a fi rst-time reviewer.
“Accurate fraud detection requires
analysis of a wide range of data points,
such as IP information, location data
or details about the device an account
was using when submitting a review.
This crucial data is missing from
Which’s analysis ... We have a dedi-
cated team of fraud investigators who
work tirelessly to protect the site from
fake reviews.”TripAdvisor
is failing to
fi lter out fake
hotel reviews,
says Which?
Villanelle’s designer
dress goes on show
in Bafta exhibition
▼ Jodie Comer as Villanelle in Killing
Eve, wearing a Molly Goddard dress
PHOTOGRAPH: ROBERT VIGLASKY/SID GENTLE FILMSRELEASED BY "What's News" vk.com/wsnws TELEGRAM: t.me/whatsnws