Tripadvisor AI summaries give glowing reviews to dangerous hotels

By&nbspRebecca Ann Hughes Published on 03/07/2026 - 14:18 GMT+2 Share Comments Add Euronews on Google Share Facebook Twitter Flipboard Send Reddit Linkedin Messenger Telegram VK Bluesky Threads Whatsapp Tripadvisor's new AI review summaries are masking reports of food poisoning, sexual harassment and serious hygiene failures, a Which? investigation has found. When browsing Tripadvisor, holidaymakers will now find an AI summary at the top of the page for the hotel they are looking at.

ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT These summaries may look useful in giving quick and easy information about the property, but in some cases scrolling down to guest reviews tells another story, according to a recently released investigation by UK consumer champion Which?. ‘Spotless’ hotel with a history of food poisoning Tripadvisor's AI summary describes the five-star, all-inclusive, Riu Palace Santa Maria in Cape Verde as 'popular with many travellers', with 'spacious rooms', ‘diverse restaurants’ that earn ‘rave reviews’ and cleanliness summarised as 'spotless'. However, recent reviews on Tripadvisor paint a very different picture.

Guests at the Riu Palace reported 'exceptionally poor hygiene', ‘no basic cleaning or hygiene standards’ and food that was 'awful, bland, unsafe and inedible'. One guest said she was served raw chicken; another shared photographs of flies and birds in the buffet food and another spotted ‘dead little roasted mice by the sitting area’ on her ‘nightmare’ holiday. One guest whose whole family fell ill wrote: ‘This place will destroy holidays, and [has the] potential to take lives.’

When Which? checked in March this year, there were 102 mentions of food poisoning at the Riu Palace. The resort also had 32 one- and two-star reviews posted between December 2025 and April 2026 alone, 14 of which say at least one member of the party fell seriously ill with some form of food poisoning.

Many were hospitalised, some flew home early and one guest died this year. The hotel is now involved in a group legal action representing at least 412 holidaymakers who say they became ill after staying at the property, with seven deaths reported since 2023. Another of Tripadvisor’s AI tools, an interactive trip planning bot called Ollie, also failed to warn holidaymakers about poor hygiene.

When asked directly about the risk of contracting food poisoning at the Riu Palace, Ollie said food poisoning was ‘quite unlikely’, and that the resort had a ‘strong reputation for high hygiene standards’. AI summaries downplay serious issues When Which? asked Tripadvisor about its AI summaries, it said it prioritises ‘transparency and impartiality’ and its summaries ‘surface a range of both positive and negative community feedback associated with listings’.

Tripadvisor also told Which? that AI chat assistant tool Ollie ‘draws from a selection of reviews based on detail and recency, and matches by language and context’, but it added that it is a ‘product in development’, and that it is now actively looking into several examples the consumer champion provided where reviews did not match. The Riu Palace wasn’t the only hotel that Which?

found serious reports of food poisoning missing from its Tripadvisor AI summary. Related Rigorous rules and hundreds of voters: How hospitality experts decide the world’s 50 best hotelsFrom cranes and castles to boats and igloos, these are the best one-of-a-kind hotels in Europe Several guests who stayed at Garza Blanca resort in Cancun in the past 12 months also left reviews saying they fell ill, including a wedding party. Yet Tripadvisor’s AI overview is once again glowing, describing ‘immaculate cleanliness’, adding that its dining options ‘earn [it] positive feedback’.

Another example was the Occidental Caribe in the Dominican Republic. Recent reviewers called it a ‘disaster and disturbing’ as recently as March 2026. Another called it the ‘worst place imaginable’.

One guest said her room smelled of sewage and that half of the 68-person wedding party she’d travelled with fell ill. Someone who visited in January reported that the whole hotel smelled of mould. Several mentioned the lack of access to running water – one guest resorted to showering with bottled water.

In contrast, the AI review summary talks about the hotel’s ‘abundant’ amenities, with only a vague nod to ‘inconsistent’ cleanliness and ‘maintenance issues’. AI describes sexual harassment as ‘lapses in service’ There are other dangers Tripadvisor’s AI summaries don’t share. At Kaia Coracesium on the Antalya coast in Turkey, several reviewers who visited last summer wrote they felt unsafe due to repeated sexual harassment from male hotel staff, including inappropriate jokes and gestures, and repeated requests to connect on social media.

Two different guests reported that a male member of staff followed their daughters to request their social media details. In one of these cases, the reviewer says a restaurant worker followed her up the stairs to her r