Booking.com strives to provide accurate and reliable information about accommodations, and reviews play a crucial role in achieving this. Let’s delve into how Booking.com handles reviews, ensuring fairness, transparency, and relevance.
Review Score and Subscores
Booking.com calculates the overall review score by averaging all received ratings. Each review score ranges from 1 to 10. To enhance review accuracy, Booking.com is testing a weighted review system in several locations, including Malta, Iceland, Australia, Greece, Brazil, and North Carolina. This system gives more weight to recent reviews, reflecting the most up-to-date experiences.
In addition to the overall score, guests can assign separate scores for specific aspects of their stay, such as location, cleanliness, staff, comfort, facilities, value for money, and free Wi-Fi. These subscores are independent of the overall score, offering a comprehensive picture of the accommodation.
Submitting and Editing Reviews
You can submit a review for an accommodation you booked through Booking.com, whether you stayed there or just arrived but didn’t stay. If you need to edit a previously submitted review, reach out to Booking.com’s Customer Service team.
Combatting Fake Reviews
Booking.com employs both human experts and automated systems to detect and remove fake reviews. If a fake review is identified, it’s promptly deleted, and necessary actions are taken against those responsible. You can also help by reporting suspicious reviews to Booking.com’s Customer Service team for further investigation.
Review Content Guidelines
Booking.com endeavors to publish all reviews, positive or negative. However, reviews containing the following will be removed:
- Impersonation: Reviews claiming to be someone else.
- Violation of review guidelines: Reviews that don’t adhere to Booking.com’s standards.
To maintain review relevance, Booking.com may only accept reviews submitted within 3 months of checkout and may stop displaying reviews older than 36 months or if there’s a change in ownership.
Review Visibility and Sorting
Accommodations have the option to respond to reviews. When you see multiple reviews, the most recent ones appear at the top, taking into account factors such as language, text content, and anonymity. You can further sort and filter reviews by time of year, score, or other criteria.
Booking.com may display external reviews from other reputable travel websites. These reviews will be clearly labeled as external.
Review Standards and Contributions
These review guidelines aim to ensure that content on Booking.com is relevant, family-friendly, and unbiased while allowing for diverse opinions.
Contributions should be travel-related and focus on providing helpful insights for other travelers. Please avoid personal opinions, political commentary, or promotional content. Inappropriate content, including hate speech, discrimination, threats, explicit language, violence, and illegal activities, is strictly prohibited.
Honesty and Respect
Reviews should be genuine and unique to each guest. Booking.com property partners are not permitted to post on behalf of guests or offer incentives for reviews. Reviews aiming to unfairly lower a competitor’s rating are also not tolerated.
Booking.com respects the privacy of all users, obscuring personal details like email addresses, phone numbers, and social media accounts.
Disclaimer
Booking.com acts as a distributor and not a publisher of reviews. Therefore, Booking.com does not bear responsibility for the opinions expressed in reviews or responses.
Review Sorting and Translations
By default, reviews are sorted by the date of submission and additional criteria, such as language, text content, and anonymity. You can also sort by traveler type, score, and other options.
Booking.com may use Google Translate to provide translations. However, Google disclaims any warranties regarding the accuracy or reliability of these translations.
Conclusion
Booking.com’s review system aims to provide travelers with comprehensive and reliable information about accommodations, enabling informed decisions. By adhering to these guidelines, Booking.com ensures a fair, transparent, and helpful review experience for all users. Remember to submit genuine, unbiased reviews that focus on your travel experiences, respecting the privacy and opinions of others.
