Now the purpose of this blog is to demonstrate how Trip Advisor is a law unto itself, as regards which reviews are permitted to remain published and those that it choses to remove.
Trip Advisor publishes guidelines for its reviews and for your information I set them out below:
- Family-friendly - No profanity, threats, prejudiced comments, hate speech, sexually explicit language or other content that is not appropriate for our community.
- Authentic guest reviews of first-hand experiences
- Relevant to other travellers
- Unique and Independent
- Original
- Non-commercial
- Submitted for an appropriate property
- Age requirement
- Valid email address and standard email formatting
Now you may recall that the Beech Hill had an infamous trip advisor review by Paul S. from London who was upset by the fact at 8pm at night he was unable to see the lake view. To see his review click here
Now in our humble opinion Paul’s review met all the guidelines of Trip Advisor for a review. And yet when and only when this review came to the attention of the press, radio & tv news outlets did Trip Advisor choose to remove this review. The question is why? Given that it met all their guidelines, I suspect that they felt it brought there name into disrepute and as such they took action.
Now consider another recent review the Beech Hill received about a week ago entitled “Stolen my money” by veghedgehog. If you would like to see the full review and our response the following link will take you to the hotels page on Trip Advisor click here
In this review the reviewer stated “Stolen my money” , “Absolutely disgusted with these thieves” & “As I said, thieves”
As soon as this review was posted we reported its content to Trip Advisor as we felt it breached their guidelines in respect of “prejudiced comments” namely falsely accusing us of unlawful activity.
Trip Advisors response to us was “The review complies with our submission guidelines… Negative comments directed toward your property may feel insulting but the reviewer is entitled to express their opinion relating to the experience – provided it does not otherwise violate our guidelines.”
Again in our humble opinion accusing us of stealing money must be verging on libellous and as such must come under the prejudiced comments part of Trip advisors guidelines. We’ll let you decide.
To help you reach your decision the definition of libel is “a published false statement that is damaging to a person's reputation”
So who does police Trip Advisor? Clearly it’s Trip Advisor and given the potential impact of these reviews on businesses and individuals is that good enough?
In my opinion it’s not. Trip Advisor should allow for independent review of its decisions almost like an appeal process.
Do let us know what you think by posting to our social media accounts.
Fraser Richardson
Managing Director
Beech Hill Hotel Limited