Research by consumer champion platform Which? has shown that TripAdvisor’s AI summary tool has a tendency to ignore issues such as food poisoning, sexual harassment, and hygiene failures. Users are therefore urged to read hotel reviews for themselves instead of relying on the AI feature.
When choosing a hotel or restaurant, many travellers do pay attention to the reviews of others to determine the quality of said places. Yet reading all those comments can get quite time-consuming when there are hundred or even thousands of them.
Some platforms, websites, and webshops have thus added a handy little feature during the past few years: an AI summary. In short, the tool summarises all reviews left by customers and gives users an objective overview of the comments, both positive and negative, left by others.
A new analysis by consumer champion platform Which?, however, shows that those AI summaries might not always be as reliable as one might think. According to the organisation, TripAdvisor’s AI summery of hotel reviews tends to concentrate on glowing reviews, while shortcomings are often ignored. The issues omitted included food poisoning, sexual harassment, and hygiene failures.
One of the cases studied by Which? is the Hotel Riu Palace Santa Maria in Cape Verde. According to the AI summary tool, the place proves to be “popular with many travellers” with “spacious rooms” and “diverse restaurants”.
That particular hotel, however, is the subject of a group action lawsuit involving more than 400 holidaymakers who are claiming to have experienced illnesses linked to poor hygiene standards and food safety failings. The food poisoning comments and other reviews pointing to poor hygiene weren’t reflected in the AI summary in March according to Which? and the summary concerning the Hotel Riu Palace Santa Maria in Cape Verde has since been made unavailable.
Holiday ends tomorrow and I can’t wait to get home. 6 days of food poisoning, addicted to Imodium, unable to eat or drink anything and so lethargic.@RiuHoteles Cape Verde have seen the last of us. RIU Palace Santa Maria is no 5* resort
— YNWA Kaiser 🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆 (@YNWA_Kaiser) October 11, 2025
Don’t believe the brochures!
Which? noted similar patterns, in which the AI summary tool concentrated on positive reviews and left out negative remarks, for other hotels as well. With this in mind, Rory Boland, Editor of Which? Travel, warned users to stay alert.
“The platform has a responsibility to revisit the accuracy of its AI summaries and AI chatbot. This failure to surface critical safety information is unacceptable and potentially life-threatening. In the meantime, users should scroll past these summaries and look at guest reviews, particularly one-star ratings, and at reviews on other sites, to make sure their next stay is a safe one,” Boland said.
Following the publication of Which?’s research results, TripAdvisor has not failed to react.
“No review content has been suppressed or hidden by the introduction of these tools, and the suggestion they pose danger to travellers is an unfounded claim that seems designed to generate controversy rather than inform readers. We believe our community understands that AI technology is still developing and has the common sense to check any AI advice against Tripadvisor’s billion-plus reviews and contributions,” a spokesperson commented.
According to the platform, AI summary tools are not intended to replace individual reviews -which can be easily found by clicking on the separate review elements – and instead provide a mere snapshot of the vast amount of comments available.
“We also have comprehensive safeguards in place to ensure important safety information is properly reflected across our platform. Our AI systems are designed to capture all types of traveller feedback, and we continuously monitor and refine our models. Our systems automatically suppress AI Summaries for listings that feature warnings from travellers about serious safety incidents such as death, drugging or sexual assault, helping ensure this content is highly visible to our community”, the TripAdvisor spokesperson continued.
Which?’s analysis confirms earlier research, showing AI tools have a tendency to tone down negative observations, instead choosing for shallower alternatives.
