Hotels want to know who you are. Especially if you’re reviewing them anonymously.
TRIPADVISOR
Oh, the things hotels will do for a good review. It’s not enough to ask guests for a write-up on a popular site such as TripAdvisor or Yelp after they’ve checked out. Lately, some innkeepers have been pressuring their customers to say positive things online — in extreme cases, even before they’ve checked in.
Sara Jensen had such an awful stay at the Hotel Toshi in New York that she decided to write about it on TripAdvisor. Little did she know that a hotel representative pretending to be a satisfied guest would promptly post a positive review to counter her comments. Or that TripAdvisor would allow it.
Mary Yostos needs your advice. She had a horrible experience at the Grand Hotel in Minneapolis last September. While at a wedding party, her wallet was stolen. Her complaints to the hotel were for nothing. “They said the restaurant on the second floor was technically not part of the hotel,” she says. So she wrote [...]
A disturbing new poll says 51 percent of air travelers say they’d rather fly while infected than pay a $150 airline change fee.
TripAdvisor, which appears to have weathered a fake-review scandal thanks in no small part to a plausible explanation from its chief executive, has never been accused of pulling any punches. Until now.
Steve Kaufer is the founder and chief executive of TripAdvisor — a site that made headlines recently when it warned that some of its hotel reviews might have been manipulated. I asked Kaufer about the site, the credibility of user-generated reviews, and the future of social media.
Elliott is consumer advocate 
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