{"id":50143,"date":"2013-11-05T11:13:18","date_gmt":"2013-11-05T09:13:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whalecottage.com\/blog\/?p=50143"},"modified":"2013-11-06T12:27:58","modified_gmt":"2013-11-06T10:27:58","slug":"sa-hotelier-slates-tripadvisor-and-its-blackmail-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chrisvonulmenstein.com\/blog\/accommodation\/sa-hotelier-slates-tripadvisor-and-its-blackmail-power\/","title":{"rendered":"SA Hotelier slams TripAdvisor, and its blackmail threat!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TripAdvisor\"<\/a>The excellent South African tourism news service Southern African Tourism Update<\/strong> published a letter it received from Chris Harvie, owner of The Rissington Inn in Hazyview just over a week ago, expressing what many owners and managers of tourism businesses feel about the TripAdvisor demon.<\/p>\n

Harvie is not only the owner of a guest house, but he is also a prolific and eloquent travel writer for the Sunday Times<\/strong> and other titles. His letter also appeared in the Sunday Times<\/strong>. \u00a0 We salute him for being brave enough to tackle a topic that is a swearword in the hospitality\u00a0industry, for the following reasons:<\/p>\n

* \u00a0 \u00a0It is one-sided, being posted without a reply to the accusations from the owner\/manager<\/p>\n

* \u00a0 It can be posted by aggrieved former staff, suppliers, neighbours, other hospitality businesses, or anyone else that has a gripe, without it being verified by TripAdvisor<\/p>\n

* \u00a0 All writers are anonymous – if they believed in what they have to say, why not reveal their real name?<\/p>\n

* \u00a0 It is often defamatory and downright dishonest, the events distorted to suit the impact and damage the writer wishes to make. \u00a0TripAdvisor is strict in not allowing one to be rude or honest in describing the (not always perfect) behavior of the guests.<\/p>\n

* \u00a0 Many complaints relate to booking cancellations, travellers not being happy to be held to the terms of the cancellation policy which they sign in acceptance when they made the booking! \u00a0This is when the blackmail makes its ugly appearance, in that one is threatened that the establishment will be ‘reported to TripAdvisor’<\/em>, as if it is a judging body! \u00a0Sometimes it is impossible to fill an exact set of dates of the cancelled booking, no matter how busy it might be.<\/p>\n

* \u00a0 NO guests book restaurants on the basis of their TripAdvisor ranking, yet we see a village like Franschhoek fighting for the number one ranking. \u00a0 We have heard horror stories of self-written positive reviews and damaging negative reviews of competitor restaurants, just to stay in the top ranking. \u00a0The minute a restaurant brags about being number one ranked on TripAdvisor, one can assume it contains self-written ‘reviews’.<\/p>\n

* \u00a0Not all guest use TripAdvisor to evaluate their experience. \u00a0Return visits, recommendations to friends and family, and messages written in the \"Whale<\/a>guest book are what really demonstrates true satisfaction of our guests at our Whale Cottages. \u00a0We invite guests to send friends or family to check the accommodation, so that they can be happy with what they are booking.<\/p>\n

* \u00a0 TripAdvisor is receiving increasingly negative publicity for its fake reviews, and damaging effect on hospitality establishment reputations. \u00a0Bigger hotel groups are starting to sue. Class action cases against TripAdvisor in the UK and the USA, in which bundles of individual hotels are being represented, have also been reported. \u00a0 TripAdvisor states that it does not take responsibility for the content for the ‘reviews’.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Chris over the phone after his letter appeared he told me that he had received overwhelming support, but that few hospitality business owners would support him publicly, for fear that it would affect their own image!<\/p>\n

We leave it to Chris Harvie to express his frustrations and anger about TripAdvisor on behalf of the South African hospitality industry, although it would apply to such establishments worldwide. \u00a0We are astounded that TripAdvisor is a business partner of SA Tourism, which clearly has no clue what its tourism products and suppliers think and feel about the ‘review’ website!<\/p>\n

‘Letter to the editor: TripAdvisor takes the joy out of hospitality\"Today's<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>
\n25 Fri, Oct 2013<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\n

Chris Harvie puts his neck on the line and looks at how TripAdvisor has taken much of the joy out of hospitality to the detriment of both hosts and guests.<\/i>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Have you noticed that we hoteliers have undergone a sinister character-change? Do you see fear in our eyes? A persecuted look? Well, if you aren\u2019t aware of it, you should be. Because you are ruining our lives. Not all of you, admittedly. Only a miniscule percentage of you, but enough people to make a significant change to the way we operate.<\/i>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

More than almost any other industry we give up our entire lives to serve the public. We give up our homes, our marriages, our holidays, our Christmases, in our endeavour to achieve 100% guest satisfaction at all times.<\/i>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Hospitality is a lifestyle. A calling. It is not a career. We don\u2019t do it for the money, and being \u2018nice\u2019 to people is not an easy job.<\/i>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

So what do we get in thanks for our efforts? TripAdvisor.<\/i>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t seem fair, does it? There\u2019s no worldwide website called SickAdvisor where \u2018millions of members\u2019 crit doctors in over 100 million reviews, is there? Or a RipAdvisor site to attack clothing manufacturers? Or TrickAdvisor to expose second-hand car dealers?<\/i>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

So why pick on us, when we are the ones who are at work when nobody else is? For whom a public holiday is not a day off but an even longer and harder day than usual?<\/i>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

I have been in hotels for more than 30 years, from frequent guest to junior employee, manager and owner, and I am always filled with admiration for my colleagues for what they put up with from some of the more unsavoury members of the public.<\/i>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

I use the word \u2018professional\u2019 deliberately because I think we are probably the most professional profession in the world. You trust us with your down-time, your recreation, your secrets, your trysts and your dirty linen. You trust us to feed you, to make your bed, to keep you safe, to wash your clothes and to clean your car whilst you switch off and relax.<\/i>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

And in return, talking of dirty linen, we get internet-wide vilification.<\/i>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Until the advent of TripAdvisor , we hoteliers took a pride in what we did. You loved us, we loved you. We\u2019d go to bed exhausted but satisfied that we had done our absolute best and believing, realistically, that we had satisfied more than 99% of you. And that the 1% simply wouldn\u2019t come back. After all, if you go to a supermarket that doesn\u2019t sell what you want, you don\u2019t go the media. You go to a different supermarket the next time.<\/i>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Nowadays, things have changed. We go to bed in fear, we sleep fitfully and we wake up in trepidation. And, believe it or not, our first move over our morning pick-me-up is to log onto TripAdvisor to reassure ourselves that, during the night, some disgruntled whinger (or even worse a bitter rival, rancorous blackmailer or a scorned lover) hasn\u2019t wreaked a worldwide web of retribution, public vilification and personal attacks that will sit and fester in the search engines way beyond any relevance they might ever have had.<\/i>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

We are under attack. And to make it worse, our persecutors are allowed to remain anonymous so we don\u2019t know their names, when they stayed, what room they were in or where they sat in the restaurant. They can attack us, name us, humiliate us but we are not even allowed to know who they are.<\/i>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Our pride in our art is wilting. The fulsome joy and spontaneous hospitality are on the wane as we find ourselves more and more on the defensive.<\/i>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

If you don\u2019t like my hotel, tell me privately, but don\u2019t emblazon it across the ether. It may not be what you wanted but it might well suit somebody else. Although, like most hotels, we aim to please the maximum number of people, we can\u2019t, realistically, be everybody\u2019s cup of tea or favourite soup, so if we are not what you wanted, don\u2019t blame us alone. You may be equally at fault for choosing the wrong place for your needs and I am not going to waste my heart attack on reading your unreasonable rantings posted on a busybody website.<\/i>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

So what\u2019s the solution to this seemingly intractable issue? Well, firstly, if we must have a TripAdvisor, it should be optional and attractive for hotels to have an entry. The website is well-followed enough, now, surely, for everyone in hospitality to want to be on it and for an absence from the site to raise enough questions on its own? I am all for reasonable and constructive guest feedback, but it should be the hotel\u2019s choice as to how it receives that.<\/i>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Secondly, reviewers should be obliged to use their real names and not hide behind keyboardwarrior anonymity. Reviewers\u2019 contact details should also be available to hoteliers and restaurateurs on request. In this way, we can find out more details of any complaints and rectify any problems.<\/i>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Thirdly, as with a number of similar sites, TripAdvisor should approach hotels for comment before publication in the case of an aggressive or negative review, instead of allowing the industry a limited (and heavily censored) opportunity to reply after the event, by which time the damage is done. We hoteliers are not allowed a website where we can complain or warn our colleagues about difficult or immoral guests \u2014 it has been tried but was ironically declared defamatory \u2014 so it is only right that we should have a veto or at least a right of reply to any attacks on us before they go public. (TripAdvisor is not alone here. Booking.com causes similar problems by asking for both positives and negatives when soliciting reviews from users, which has the disadvantage of asking people to scratch their heads and find a negative, even when they might not previously have been bothered by one.)<\/i>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Hoteliers hate TripAdvisor. Full stop. It\u2019s not a watchdog. It is potentially the hotelier\u2019s enemy in the way that no other industry has one.<\/i>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Certainly it provides a great opportunity for good feedback and positive promotion through genuine rave reviews, but it is also a potential vehicle for systematic persecution, and is easily used by the unscrupulous to threaten and blackmail hoteliers into providing more than has been paid for and to seek out special favours.<\/i>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

For now, the hotelier\u2019s best option still seems to be to ignore TripAdvisor and not to court reviews.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>We hospitality folk want you to be happy, because if you\u2019re happy, we are happy. Then we can put the joy back into hospitality. It will be to everybody\u2019s benefit’<\/i>.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio:\u00a0www.whalecottage.com\u00a0<\/a>Twitter: @WhaleCottage<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The excellent South African tourism news service Southern African Tourism Update published a letter it received from Chris Harvie, owner of The Rissington Inn in Hazyview just over a week ago, expressing what many owners and managers of tourism businesses feel about the TripAdvisor demon. Harvie is not only the owner of a guest house, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[7,124,14,25,20,528,22,21],"tags":[32367,2140,22120,32378,22122,3295,13,22121,910,5,1086,561,562,13550],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t