One of the worst-rated hotels in Las Vegas has become the center of investigations by two major travel booking sites after influencers claimed it was using deceptive listings to lure in customers.
The OYO Hotel off the Vegas Strip was scrutinized on social media last week, when travelers noticed something strange on travel booking sites. Hotels called the Palette and Collection O popped up on these sites, but the photos and details in the listings oddly resembled the OYO.
Ariana Patiño, a mom of two from Utah, said in a TikTok video posted last week that she deliberately tried to avoid OYO but ended up there anyway after booking a stay at the Palette on Booking.com.
“We’re driving around and around and around, and we cannot find Palette Las Vegas. So, the closest to that address was OYO Hotel,” Patiño said. She said that when she went inside the OYO, the receptionist admitted that the Palette was the OYO and that the hotel “just put the listing up to see which ad…will gain more traction.”
“Yeah, because OYO looks like a dump and you made Palette look really nice,” Patiño said.
A local influencer named Jennifer, who goes by Vegas Starfish on TikTok, saw Patiño’s video and warned her 1.8 million followers.
“The reviews are terrible, and they’ve been hurting for business, so they created an entirely fake hotel called Palette,” Jennifer said in a video posted over the weekend. “Employees from OYO sent me messages and said it’s been pure chaos internally. Apparently corporate didn’t think anyone would notice this or care.”
The Independent has reached out to PRISM, the India-based hospitality parent company of OYO, for comment.
Collection O, like Palette, had photos almost identical to OYO’s, except for what appeared to be AI-generated edits. For example, putting Collection O branding on the facade of the OYO building.
Booking.com and Expedia are investigating listings for the Palette and Collection O, the travel sites confirmed to the Las Vegas Review-Journal Thursday.
“We take the process of verifying accommodation listings seriously,” a spokesperson for Booking.com told the publication. “We also have dedicated teams and technical tools that monitor for suspicious activity around the clock.
“These measures are designed to help prevent fraudulent listings from appearing, but we recognize that bad actors continue to develop increasingly sophisticated tactics.”
The Independent has reached out to Booking.com and Expedia for comment.
