Spain aims to ban fake tourism and hospitality reviews

Through a new series of measures, including the possibility for business owners to request the removal of reviews if they can prove they're fake, the change forms part of broader amendments to the country's Customer Services Law, which is currently in the final stages of parliamentary processing.

Though details are as of yet unclear, reports from Spain's state broadcaster RTVE state that in order for fake reviews to be taken down, the business must prove that the review is not real, either because the consumer has not bought the product or enjoyed the service in question, or because its content is demonstrably untrue.

"As this is a general rule, it does not specify the way in which the trader must prove the untruthfulness of the review, but may use elements adapted to the specific case: evidence showing that an invoice shown in the review has been manipulated or that the prices referred to in the reviews are not real, for example," the Ministry explained.

Other measures to this end include the possibility for the trader to reply to reviews in order to ensure that consumers receive complete information.

The Consumer Affairs Ministry also wants to an obligation to leave reviews within 30 days of the purchase of the good or service. The aim of this initiative is to ensure that reviews correspond to the real and recent opinion of fellow consumers.

According to the legal text seen by Spanish daily El País: "reviews issued must relate to goods or services purchased or used within 30 calendar days prior to the date of the review and the trader marketing the good or service to which a review relates shall be entitled to respond to the review through the same channel."

In addition to these new features, the Ministry also reiterated initiatives already present in the current law, such as bans on the buying and selling reviews or the obligations on verifying reviews as having been submitted by a real consumer.

The Ministry, headed by Sumar Minister Pablo Bustinduy, is in part taking inspiration from other countries, such as Italy, that have also sought to tighten up controls on online reviews.

Websites with review services such as TripAdvisor, TheFork, and Booking can have huge a sway on where consumers take their business.

In a country like Spain that depends on the tourism and hospitality sectors for a significant proportion of its GDP (12.3 percent in 2023, according to the latest data from Spain's national stats body, INE) removing fake or potentially damaging reviews is viewed as a way to defend business owners and by extension a driver of the economy.

In 2023 tourism generated more than 2.5 million jobs, representing 11.6 percent of total employment in Spain.