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Editorial Policy

Last updated: May 2026

This page documents how HotelScout creates, reviews, and updates editorial content — hotel descriptions, city overviews, blog articles, and the curated collections that appear on our destination pages. Our goal is straightforward: readers should trust what they read here, and the work that produces it should be transparent.

How content is created

  • Source-driven, not opinion-driven. Every property page starts from verified third-party data: the Booking.com source feed for ratings, amenities, and photos; Wikidata for entity matching of cities and points of interest; OpenStreetMap for geographic verification.
  • Editorial framing on top of source data. Our editorial team writes the narrative layer — neighborhood context, what kind of trip a property suits, what makes the destination interesting. The factual underpinning (rating numbers, address, amenities list) comes from the source feeds.
  • Quality gates before publishing. Each property and article passes an automated check before it goes live: minimum description length, a forbidden-word filter that rejects marketing-speak (“best”, “ultimate”, “premier”), photo verification, geo verification. Content that fails any check stays in draft.
  • No invented reviews. When a property page shows a guest rating, that number comes from the Booking.com source feed. We don't generate fake review text. We don't inflate scores. We don't hide low ratings.

Review and updates

  • Weekly source refresh. Guest ratings, amenities, prices, and photo sets stay in sync with the Booking.com source feed on a weekly pipeline.
  • Editorial review on drift. When source data changes materially (new amenities, replaced photos, category change), the editorial description is regenerated to match.
  • Dated content. Blog articles carry a visible publication date. Property data freshness is reflected in the page's server-rendered timestamp. Articles older than twelve months get a fresh editorial review.
  • Catalog reassignments are sticky. When a property is mis-classified (wrong city, wrong country, closed), we correct it via editorial override and add a redirect from the old URL so existing links to the property still resolve.

Independence from commercial relationships

HotelScout participates in the Booking.com affiliate program. We earn a referral commission when readers book through one of our outbound links. The mechanics are documented on the Affiliate Disclosure page. The editorial implications:

  • No paid placements. A hotel cannot pay to be added to our catalog, to rank higher on our pages, or to win a “featured” slot. There is no “sponsored hotel” tier.
  • No commission-driven sorting. Our default sort is by guest rating. We have not built — and will not build — a sort that ranks by referral commission.
  • No editorial pressure from affiliate revenue. Descriptions are not tilted toward higher-commission properties. We've never altered editorial coverage to drive bookings.
  • No payment for favorable coverage. We don't accept payments, free stays, or comped services in exchange for editorial placement or favorable language.

Errors and corrections

If you find a factual error on any page — a property that's closed, an outdated photo, a wrong address, a misclassified category, a broken affiliate link — please email [email protected] with the URL and a short description. We aim to respond within 24-48 hours and update the page once the correction is verified.

We don't silently rewrite content to bury mistakes. When a page is updated for a factual correction, the change shows up in the page's next freshness timestamp.

What we don't do

  • We don't generate review text.
  • We don't accept payment for editorial coverage.
  • We don't alter descriptions to drive bookings or favor specific properties.
  • We don't accept “guest post” submissions that promote a specific hotel or destination.
  • We don't sort by commission, host paid placements, or run promoted slots.

Related

See How We Choose Hotels for the specific criteria a property must meet to enter the catalog, and About for the broader editorial position.