Hotels Are Way Too Paranoid About TripAdvisor Reviews

Hotels and hotel managers have gotten way too paranoid about online reviews. How have we become a culture where we rely so heavily on online reviews (true or not) that one or two online reviews will make or break a business? Or even stop people from going to a hotel just because of something we read on the internet?

Do you believe everything that you’ve read on the internet?

Let’s look at a recent example of an honest online review left at Tripadvisor, and how the hotel owners (or hotel manager) responded to that review. In this case, the person leaving the review deleted their honest review of a hotel, afraid of the possible repercussions from the hotel owners, that quite possibly could have ruined their career.

Yes, you read that right. A hotel owner, upset about an online review that contained negative information about the hotel, essentially ruined the career of someone who stayed at the hotel.

In a recent thread over at Reddit, the reviewer wrote about what happened:

• The reviewer is a musician, paid to perform at the hotel. They got a free hotel room for a two night gig.
• The reviewer was upset about the fact that people staying in a room above them were loud, and that the hotel’s construction contributed to it being loud in their room. So much so they couldn’t sleep.
• The reviewer left an honest review on the hotel’s TripAdvisor listing.
• The reviewer, feeling bad about the review, deleted the review.
• The hotel saw the review before it was deleted.
• As a result of the hotel review (that was actually deleted), the hotel stopped the free hotel room offer. The business relationship of the people who hired the musician was ruined, as well.

The musician was totally in his or her right to leave an honest review of the hotel. In my opinion, we should be totally free to write honest reviews about a business, without fear of any repercussions by the hotel owner, the staff, or anyone else.