There is much debate as to the benefit of customer reviews on sites like TripAdvisor, ReviewCentre and HolidayWatchdog (owned by TripAdvisor!) for destinations, industry and the visitor. I believe that our visitors are more savvy than we think and they take reviews they find on these sites with a pinch of salt, although it may ultimately be a deciding factor between chsoosing from a selection of accommodation providers.
To try and counter-act fake reviews (i.e. Hotels uploading a positive review on their own property) the European Union annouced a new Directive last year which is in force now that makes it illegal to "falsely representing oneself as a consumer". This may become very difficult to police, however it may deter some businesses as they will not want to take the risk of getting caught!
Having used sites like ActiveHotels and LateRooms, they have review services, however you can only write a review after you have completed your stay; the visitor gets an email sent to them asking for a review to be written - this could have far more authenticity than the more open sites like the ones listed above.
ThomasCook this week annouced that they are to build their own review forum allowing customers to upload reviews, videos and photos of their resorts due to mistrust in sites like those listed above being abused.
I think the key thing is that customer will use all sorts o fthis channels to find out the real picture of a property - the businesses own website being the shop window is a lso a key indicator on the quality of an estabishment.
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