My article about online hotel reviews drew an interesting response from Ideal Hotel in Paris. The property’s owner, Nawar Alsaadi, e-mailed me and suggested that this scathing review was posted on TripAdvisor by someone who didn’t stay at his hotel.
The write-up detailed an unfortunate overbooking situation in which a nameless guest was offered alternate accommodations at a hotel described as “a complete dump” and concluded, “No matter how reasonable you think the price is avoid this place at all costs!”
Although Alsaadi was allowed to post a rebuttal on TripAdvisor, he said he would prefer the site to remove the review because, he says, the incident probably never happened.
“It is fairly certain at this stage,” he wrote in an e-mail to TripAdvisor, “that whoever wrote this review is either a disgruntled employee, a competitor (possibly one of the two hotels mentioned as good in the review), or simply racist because the hotel owners are from Iraq.”
TripAdvisor’s response, from someone named “Corie” seemed as boilerplate as it was dismissive: “We determined that the review does meet our review criteria and will remain posted on the site. Since reviews are posted by our members on our open forum, and we do not verify the information posted in them, we are unable to provide you with proof that this member ‘reserved, stayed or actually visited ideal hotel’.”
Alsaadi is exasperated. “Here we are in a situation where anyone from anywhere can post any review they wish, while hiding under the cover of anonymity,” he wrote to me.
I’m not going to take sides in this dispute. But the more I learn about the online hotel review process, the more I am convinced that the system is seriously, and possibly even hopelessly, flawed.
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The system is flawed, only if the reader takes everything that’s written as reality. I’ve read side-by-side hotel reviews on Trip Advisor that totally contradicted one another.
I evaluate adverse reviews the same way I evaluate “everything is perfect” reviews on the booking sites; with a block of salt.
I’ve also found that people who write the kinds of reviews that totally trash a place are not the kind of people I want to be in the same hotel with, anyway.
One last thought: the biggest problem, generally, is that people’s expectations get too high and this impacts their review negatively. I try to travel with an open but not empty mind.
Chris,
I agree with your writer. We have had a situation with more than one of our clients — hotels primarily — who have been sabotaged unfairly by disgruntled employees. Some of the untrue comments can be pretty devastating and unfortunately do affect perceptions of prospective guests.
The system isn’t perfect and it is a wonderful idea in concept, but the hotels surely need to be able to rebut and in turn offer some prompting to their satisfied customers to go on these sites and write positive reviews.
I know that when I am reading reviews and find one that is totatly negative, my reaction is to wonder about the person who wrote and disregard what the person is saying about the hotel.
I would tend to agree that it’s best to be skeptical when reading a review that completely trashes a hotel or bed and breakfast. I’ve stayed in many that I found to completely wonderful, where the inn keepers will go out of their way to insure that your stay is as comfortable as being home, only to read on Trip Advisor “one” out of twenty where it was obvious that the writer didn’t stay at the same hotel I did. I don’t agree with reviews being anonymous. That’s the coward’s way out. I believe all reviews should only be posted by verified “members” with verifiable e-mail addresses. If you think you have the cajones to possibly ruin someone’s business, have the cajones to sign your name to it. Otherwise, move along.
I never believed any site that accepts advertisements is unbiased. The car magazine is going to give out “best car of the year” to its biggest advertiser; the PC magazine is going to give out “best buy” to its biggest advertiser and so on. All these reviews are all scams.