Within the last year, TripAdvisor has amassed 25 million user reviews, bringing the total to 75 million - all from 32 million user accounts (up from 20 million last year at this time). Tnooz also reported that TripAdvisor's number of contributions to the site per minute has doubled since last year and it now hosts over 11 million user generated images. The site attracts 56 million people every month, and is a major playor in the travel industry despite criticism from operators business owners that its review system is unfair at best and unethical at worst. According to Tnooz:
Of course, all this astonishing growth may well help to sooth any worries emerging within the financial community (as well as this), but it will also only further anger those who question TripAdvisor’s model and protocols around collection and managing of reviews. Many hoteliers (and perhaps even consumers, though their voices are rarely heard) would like to see some kind of verification process put in place so that content is only submitted by users that can prove they stayed at a property or visited an attraction.
There are also issues around the process for getting rid of old reviews from the system.
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