Smart Gets You Further - Building Trust in Online Reviews with the new EU Code of Conduct

Welcome back to the Youth Smart Tourism Podcast. I'm Misa from the European Commission. And today we're going to be talking about online reviews. Smart gets you further. Online reviews shape almost every decision we make. Where to go, where to sleep, where to eat, even when we're not traveling. But as they become defining components in our daily decisions, then concerns about trust and transparency and reliability also grow, and this is a good thing. So in this episode, we're looking at how the European Union is addressing these challenges. Through a "You Code of Conduct" on online ratings and reviews, a code of conduct is a voluntary framework designed to build trust through cooperation rather than regulation. So we'll hear from the European Commission, from the Hospitality Sector, and from one of the world's leading review platforms to understand why it is an initiative, how it works in practice, and what it could mean for the future of tourism. To start, let me introduce you to Thomas Shumy, a colleague from the European Commission. My name is Thomas Shumy. I am originally from Austria, and I am a Policy Officer at Moof, and I have been working on the Code of Conduct for online reviews and ratings for tourism accommodation. Checking reviews is something most of us do on plan in a trip, and that is where this code of conduct comes in. So the Code of Conduct, it's a voluntary industry initiative, we're talking about increasing the transparency and reliability of online reviews and ratings, in particular for tourism accommodation, and it contains a number of horizontal principles for online platforms, accommodation providers, monitoring certain, certain principles, and it was recently published on September 1st. The end goal is for everyone to have the best possible vacation by finding the best possible accommodation provider. Ideally, the Code of Conduct works in the background and helps in the long term, book consumers, the optimal accommodation according to their needs. One of the most distinctive aspects of this initiative is the way it was designed. Instead of introducing new legislation, new rules, the European Commission chose a voluntary and collaborative approach, bringing different actors around the table. This soft approach was chosen since all involved stakeholders. You have the online platforms, you have accommodation providers and ultimately also consumers. Everybody profits off reliable and trustworthy reviews. So there's obviously no one going against them. So that makes a big factor. And for that reason, a collaborative approach was kind of chosen. This kind of cooperation is complex when it applies to a case where responsibilities are shared across many actors. And in tourism, the level of detail and coordination involved, particularly in this case, is unusual. For tourism, I think it's one of a kind going into that much detail with such an extensive network of stakeholders involved. The EU kinder has a trail-bracing role in regulating the online environment in general, I would say. So what does the Code of Conduct actually do in practice? It doesn't force businesses or platforms to completely rethink how they operate. Rather, it focuses on aligning existing good practices and good examples and bringing them together. So the Code of Conduct contains a number of principles, some are either for accommodation providers or online platforms. And it serves to increase the transparency and reliability of online reviews and ratings. How does it work? Ideally, there should not be for any interested stakeholders a kind of approach where they completely need to change their business operations. It collects a number of good and best practices we have identified and puts them in a framework. Online reviews might be familiar, but once you start looking a bit closer, the ecosystem behind them turns out to be far more complex. There are hotels, there are short-term rentals, there are online platforms through which you can do a booking, there are online platforms which allow reviews where you cannot do a booking at all. And all these different types of stakeholders play their part in the ecosystem. This complexity becomes even clearer when you look at the kinds of situations the Code of Conduct is designed to address. We can talk about how to deal with anonymous reviews. I mean, is it viable for someone to leave a review without providing their name, yes or no? We are talking about reviews by guests who either made a stay or did not make a stay. If you think about someone tried to do a booking but then was discriminated against, that's like one of the most and more negative aspects, are they still entitled to leave a review? We're talking about when does a review cross the line, though that also already goes into the legal framework to a certain point. And what's also quite big is a collaborative approach. Almost everyone has probably heard of review-bombing. We've also received information about possibly bad faith actors, blackmailing accommodation providers, and obviously if an accommodation provider can share the information with an online platform, it might be important for them as well, so you can already proactively take steps. Even these different scenarios quickly became clear that there was no simple division between consumers on one side and businesses on the other. Interestingly enough, that was not the case here. I mean, you had consumers, you had online platforms and you had accommodation providers, all with their own sets of interest. And those interests were either aligned between the two of them and not the other one, but it was not this clear distinction between, hey, we have business on the other one on one side and consumers on the other one. Everyone was interested in increasing their reliability and trustworthiness of reviews, but everyone had their own point with certain issues which are which made the whole initiative that much more complicated. But getting to that shared information that common agreement wasn't just about the principles themselves, it also meant bringing together the right organizations from across the tourism ecosystem. The first step was to find a code of conduct that was agreeable to key organizations we have identified. I mean, the code of conduct as it is currently represents, I think, the majority, I would say, of tourism accommodation in Europe. From the beginning, the code of conduct was designed as a living thing, a living framework, one that can change as the digital tourism ecosystem evolves. What matters now is how that evolution takes shape. The idea is there for umbrella organizations to exchange ideas, issues, perhaps changes for relevant for online reviews in the future. And have us do get out and ideally it would be SMEs on the ground, just the profiting off of the findings of the code without having to put in a lot of emphasis on informing themselves. Thanks, Thomas. To understand how this framework is seen from the hospitality side, especially by small and independent businesses, we spoke with Marine Tison from Otrack. My name is Marine Tison. I work as public affairs manager at Otrack. So it's a weird acronym, but we are the European Association representing hotels, restaurants, bars and cafes in Europe. And we have a large, very large membership with 47 member associations from 36 countries. And what's important to say in this context, the context of online reviews is that 99% of our companies are classified as SMEs. And it's about 2 million businesses across Europe. For small and independent hospitality businesses, online disability isn't just about marketing. It is increasingly tied to whether a business can operate at all. The world of today for a small hotel, a restaurant or cafe, digital issues in general, but also digital reputation. It's as important for hotels, restaurants as the quality of the room, as important as the quality of the meal, the serve, or the quality of the service they bring to guests. Without proper investment in the digital reputation, they cannot run the business properly. That's also because reviews play such a central role in how people choose where to stay or eat. More than 90% of travelers read reviews before booking a place to eat or before booking a hotel. One other figure which is interesting is that 80% of consumers say that one bad or one good review can completely change their choice. But with a level of influence comes a serious risk. The problem we're facing is that the credibility of these reviews is being undermined. We see more and more growing fake reviews, misleading reviews, unauthentic reviews. That shared interest in protecting trust is one of the main reasons all track decided to engage in a court of conduct. One thing we wanted to make sure that we would raise awareness about the importance of reviews for a sector, whether they are negative or positive reviews are super important. And also I wanted to say here and reinforce the message that negative reviews are as important for us as positive. Because the businesses reuse these criticisms, constructive criticisms to improve their service. But for hospitality operators, the issue isn't just the existence of reviews, it's how problems are handled when something goes wrong. Very important point is that now all focus is on making sure the hospitality operators can notify platforms easily and quickly that's really two important words when they identify a suspicious review. And investigating the veracity of this feedback online. That's not always easy, especially when small businesses are dealing with very large platforms. Representing independent and small businesses, we are facing huge operators in front of us. So of course we have to make sure that the dialogue is fair and I think the very fact that the code establishes a structured dialogue between these us and all the stakeholders involved is very good, it's very positive. Because when things go wrong, the impact is far from abstract. Fake reviews, negative or positive, but have real consequences. For a hotel it can impact negatively their revenues by up to 15%. But of course it's not just an economic impact, a fake review can damage a family reputation sometimes which was built over years, decades. It has a big impact on staff, on their morale, on their motivation to come to work and do a good job on the operator's mental health, the owner. It's not to be in the mind, really. So the impact is strong and that's why also we are so heavily involved in trying to find solutions to improve the situation. Thanks Marie. Now to hear how this looks from the platform side, we spoke with Fabrizio Orlando from StripAdvisor. Fabrizio Orlando, director of government relations and public affairs at TripAdvisor. I focus on shaping and influencing policies at the intersection of technology, government and of course our industry, talent tourism. So what I do with my team is lead our strategic and high impact engagement with tourism ministers, senior government officials, DU commission, DU parliament, national regulators, policymakers. TripAdvisor is one of the world's largest platforms hosting travel reviews but he also operates differently from many booking platforms and that difference turned out to be central to the discussions around the code of conduct. We live in a world in which online reviews influence around 4 trillion US dollars in purchase across all industries of course. And again, it's 4 trillion, not not billion, it's a huge amount of money. And it's evident the review integrity is fundamental to consumer confidence and travelers are not an exception as a type of consumers. Reviews really, really, really are a very powerful tool. They empower consumers to make decisions, they empower businesses, they empower the allow competition to thrive in a tracereco system. But at the same time they can also deceive consumers if there's lack of transparency. For TripAdvisor, trust isn't just an abstract principle, it is central to how the platform operates. We were 25 years, we were pioneers into bringing reviews to the travel and tourism industry. Today there's a play for our platforms and website, the host reviews, but we really think that with the huge specific weight the reviews bring into the market. We as platforms and as an industry need to do a great job, a very good job in protecting and shielding consumer confidence. It's not easy to build trust, you need to do a very good job for a very long time. One way TripAdvisor has tried to make that work visible is rich transparency around how reviews are moderated. What we did as TripAdvisor to even increase trust in the way in which we moderate content and reviews on our platform is creating a transparency report. We've been the first platform in the travel space and the travel industry to create and release a transparency report. It was back in 2019. And what we did and we do it every two years, we released a lot of data, not just on how many reviews we received, how many fake reviews we thought, how many we blocked before publication, how many we removed after publication. But we also give an insight on how we do it. But one of the key challenges in developing the product was recognizing that not all platforms work in the same way. Even though we are all platforms that operate in the travel industry space and that host reviews, we have different business models and we operate in different ways. And I think this was the first message that I spend time delivering to make you an example. You can book an accommodation on booking.com or Expedia, which are the other two platforms that sign the code with us. You can not book in Europe an accommodation on TripAdvisor. So the idea that only reviews are compound by a proof of purchase or a booking are authentic is completely wrong because there are people that do not book on TripAdvisor, however, leave review on TripAdvisor, rights review on TripAdvisor. And we do a great job in moderating that contents. That question of who is actually entitled to leave a review turned out to be another key issue. It's not just people that pay for a hotel room. Now that we're talking about accommodations that are entitled to leave a review. It's also the other people staying with that person that paid. Think about a family of four people. Why only the one that pays the bill is allowed to leave reviews. Everyone is allowed to leave reviews. Or think about booking an accommodation wanting to go to an accommodation and not getting allowed inside because your racial profile or your sexual orientation, all those people, even though they don't have a proof of purchase are allowed to leave reviews. And I think we really did a great job when working on this code and making sure that all the people that have a direct engagement with the business can leave a review. TripAdvisor also argued that proof of purchase on its own doesn't automatically make a review authentic. Even if you have a proof of purchase that doesn't really mean that the review that you're leaving is a real review is an authentic review. There are a lot of ways to circumvent proof of purchase. Otherwise platforms like booking or expedient or Amazon would never have fake reviews, which unfortunately is not the case. So there are ways to circumvent proof of purchase. And this is why I was saying earlier that one side fits so it doesn't really work. And there's no one way of tackling fake reviews. Every platform built their own content moderation policies and processes based on the type of business model that we have. All of this brought very different perspectives around the same table. For Fabrizio, this is what the process is ultimately delivered. I think we are achieving two big wins with the code of conduct. One is raising consumer trust and raising the standards that platforms and a condition providers need to uphold to in order to host reviews. And the other big win is the collaboration that we had with institutions on one end but also among different platforms. We have different business models. We have different approach to content moderation and review moderation. I'm very proud and happy of the way in which we sat together and worked through a way to make sure that we could really finalize this code. And I think that we work hard to build the code. And I'm sure that we would work even harder to make sure that it continues to protect European consumers and businesses. That's all for today's episode. A big thank you to our guests and of course to you for listening. We'll see you next time on the EU Smart Tourism Podcast.