Not only is TripAdvisor ruining the online reputation of many hoteliers left at the mercy of fake, anonymous and negative reviews, it is also enabling some hotel guests in committing blackmail.
According to an item in the press today, hotel guests are using the threat of a bad review on TripAdvisor to blackmail owners and hotel managers into paying hundreds of pounds worth of undeserved ‘compensation’, or giving away free upgrades, free meals and/or an extra night stay - even when there was nothing wrong with their stay.
Some 80 or so hoteliers had contacted the Times newspaper to say their businesses has been targeted by unscrupulous holidaymakers demanding an upgrade or seeking a refund to prevent them submitting a damaging one-star rating to the travel website.
Power of bad reviews
A bad rating on the TripAdvisor site can cost a hotel tens of thousands of pounds in lost bookings and it seems the ongoing saga between hoteliers and TripAdvisor – in allowing anonymous and fake reviews - has educated many into the power of the review and using TripAdvisor as a ‘weapon’ against hotels, where there wasn’t any issue with the stay in question.
Launched in 2000, TripAdvisor receives 45million unique visitors a month from holidaymakers and business travellers looking for accommodation but its model of using completely anonymous reviews, often without any supporting evidence, has been criticised as unfair to hoteliers.
A spokesman for TripAdvisor said: ‘We take allegations of blackmail or threatening behaviour by guests against property owners very seriously. Not only is it strictly against our guidelines, but it may also be illegal.’
With Free Speech comes Responsibility
False accusations and misleading statements (or ‘reviews’ as TripAdvisor calls them) do very real offline damage to a business.
If a company has given shoddy service or an inferior product then by all means share your accurate account with the online community but what we are talking about here is the use of a review site as a weapon where there isn’t any issue with the product or service, but that the comment poster has their own agenda to defame the target business, and in doing so, ruin an otherwise well respected company, and put the livelihoods’ of the employees who work there at risk.
The agenda of the fake reviewer can range from guests wanting undeserved freebies – as in this case – or it can be disgruntled ex employees, or more commonly, rival hoteliers desperate to stop a haemorrhage of guests from their own hotel to a better run one.
It seems, that for these unscrupulous hoteliers it is easier to defame a rival than ensure their own guests are well looked after.
The Solution?
Online Reputation Management (ORM) uses a variety of online marketing and PR techniques to put positive brand messages out that will have a two fold effect. Firstly, the positive brand messages will often appear prominently in web searches for the brand name via various online channels and news sites which influence brand perception, but the knock on effect is that those positive messages (if done correctly) will dilute the negative press and therefore restore balance to the online reputation.
For the latest on “tripadvisor online reputation” see the updated post here: TripAdvisor, Online Reputation and ASA
If you want to discuss or review your online reputation get in touch with Edible for further details.