Hotel Reviews: Impact, Responsibility, and Integrity
My thoughts on traveller reviews today.
As a guest, I'm perfectly ok with my hotel reviews being deleted if something I complained about is well and truly gone (as in literally demolished during a renovation) such as the advice I received from TripAdvisor about my review of a London hotel. As a hotelier, I want to retain the right to have a review deleted if I can demonstrate the issue is not valid. The definition of "not valid" is the hard part.
However, the importance of now-deleted Google reviews can not be underestimated in the tragic unfolding incident in Laos:
From the articles I've read on this particular case, Google removed the reviews purely because the Hostel representative claimed the guests' statements of getting sick were slander.
Will horrifying cases such as this lead to further revised policies by travel review forums? It is something I am keen to study as a Decentralised Travel Agency (DTA) platform environment evolves, where travellers bypass online booking agencies and connect directly to hotels and airlines which publish only their own reviews.
What say you?
If you want the right to control reviews, then you need your own platform on your own site, that way you can get guest details to verify the truth in their comments, then you can choose to publish or not.
Once again, we hand over control to an external source then complain when it doesn't go our way, or we can't control the narrative or remove what is falsehoods.
Open your webpage on your website then you can control the narrative, you can verify someone has stayed and you can control the comments, but always with a balance of good and not so good.
I would be attuned to believe what's on a hotels website and not linked through from…
It's such a complex balance between transparent consumer feedback and fair business practices! Not only in hotels, but across so many industries. I agree that hoteliers should have recourse to remove reviews given there's so many false claims/competitor sabotage. I do think its up to travel review forums to monitor, but to TMs point, the answer is not always black and white, particularly for bots. Perhaps having an independent regulatory body oversee review platforms, similar to how financial or medical review sites are regulated?
I am torn on how I feel about this. Laos is such an amazing and wonderful country to visit. However, it is one of the poorest countries in the world and as such law enforcement is lacking.
To a backpacker, a free drink at the end of a busy day exploring is very enticing. It is guaranteed to attract attention when someone is taking the path to purchase and will increase conversion. But a business owner must fund those drinks on their own very tight budget.
Those of us who have been in the hospitality industry for a long time will have seen many things done that skirt the law and push beyond what is ethical. Nightclubs watering down drinks. …