The Trivago hotel room comparison website was put under the spotlight by the Federal Court of Australia last week, and was found wanting! As the Court put it, 'Trivago misled the public as to the nature, characteristics and suitability for purpose of the accommodation search service provided by the Trivago website'.
The Court found that Trivago hotel room reviews can't be trusted for these four reasons:
- The hotel rooms are reviewed by a secret algorithm. But just like a cheap pizza is made with few ingredients, Trivago displays the cheapest hotel room by inputting only prices in its algorithm - it does not include non-price attributes such as free breakfast, refundable tariffs, bed size or pay at check-in as inputs.
- The Online Booking Sites pay Trivago a Cost per Click - a fee each time a customer clicks on their link. Trivago rewards Booking Sites and Hotels which offer to pay the most per click with 'Top Deal' status. And Trivago punishes Booking Sites and Hotels who won't pay the minimum it demands per click by leaving them out of the room comparison.
- The hotel room comparisons are not 'like for like' because the comparisons are not necessarily for the same room type. A hotel room may be cheaper because it can be overlooking a carpark, compared with a hotel room which looks the same internally but is overlooking the sea. This is not mentioned.
- The 'Top Deal' is displayed is visually appealing way. It has a relatively large font, has a white space around it, it is green in colour above a green "View Deal" button. The comparison rooms are in small grey font to the left. See the image. Behavioural scientists said that the time-poor consumer would click the button without reviewing the comparable rooms.
The Court concluded that in only 33.2% of the time was the 'Top Deal' highlighted by Trivago the cheapest price.