A Question of Ethics
Written by Jay Karen on April 30, 2008 – 4:34 pmHere’s what happened. A ballroom full of innkeepers has gathered. It’s the first morning of the PAII conference. Our keynote speaker, Daniel Levine, is speaking about five social trends that are impacting our businesses. It’s a fresh, forward-thinking message. Then he drops a bomb on the audience.
Levine was talking about the social trend he calls, “Transparency Tyranny.” In brief, it has to do with the phenomenon of consumer-generated content on the internet. In our world of innkeeping, that mostly means online reviews, ala TripAdvisor, BedandBreakfast.com, etc. He gave a few other examples of how Web 2.0 is taking over the internet. One funny, but scary, example was www.rottenneighbor.com, where one can “Locate, Rate and Share Good and Bad Neighbors Before and After You Move.” In the context of this Web 2.0 discussion – and here’s the bomb – Levine suggested to innkeepers that they should essentially “game” the TripAdvisor system by leaving your own reviews of your own properties. In fact, he even suggests innkeepers should leave multiple reviews from different IP addresses or servers, so that TripAdvisor doesn’t catch you leaving multiple reviews. If you didn’t know, that breaks the rules TripAdvisor sets for innkeepers and hoteliers.
Personally, I was appalled. I looked around and wondered if everyone else heard what I had just heard. I didn’t think it was appropriate for me to stand up in the crowd and stop Levine during his presentation, but maybe I should have. The advice he offered was way off base. A few innkeepers walked out during his presentation. I was concerned that he lost all credibility at that moment, and that his main message was going to be lost.
The very next morning at the second general session of the conference, I delivered a formal rebuttal to Levine’s suggestion. I told the gathered innkeepers that PAII neither condones nor endorses what our speaker suggested. I shared my belief that it is perfectly ok to invite your guests to submit reviews of their experience, but within the bounds of good ethics. Apparently I struck a chord, because my comments were met with much applause. It was reassuring to see that the innkeeping community is by-and-large an ethical group of people. Furthermore, the conference was buzzing in the hallways and classrooms with this issue. Again, it was good to see that innkeepers care about doing the right thing and responded with shock to Levine’s comments.
Here’s a question for me to consider: what does PAII do with what happened? First, as I told the conference attendees, we’re not going to lose Levine’s valuable message on social trends. PAII is going to take each social trend and engage our members in a conversation about them. What are you doing now to embrace the trend? What do you think innkeepers can do? What does PAII think innkeepers can do? The five trends shared with us were:
Personalization
Transparency Tyranny
Mobile Everywhere
Women Power
Sustainability
To the issue of ethics as it relates to online reviews, I am going to bring to the PAII Board of Directors the idea of publishing a public position statement on behalf of the innkeeping community about the proper and ethical approach to take with online reviews. The online review phenomenon is relatively young, and in some cases there is a lack of direction and convention. The sites that offer reviews have their own rules, but we believe there should be a statement from the innkeepers too. Online reviews – when done properly or improperly – impact the lives of innkeepers in a significant way. I believe your trade association is the place to host a conversation about these matters, endorse an ethical way of doing business and let the world know what our position is.
In addition, we will step up our dialogue with our friends at TripAdvisor. The two major players in our industry are BedandBreakfast.com and TripAdvisor. In my humble opinion, I think BedandBreakfast.com has done a good job keeping the innkeepers in mind when designing their online review program. On their FAQ page, they even encourage travelers to stay at inns that have no reviews, or even negative reviews. They know very well that a negative review doesn’t paint the entire picture. The content on this page offers well-balanced advice and insight, and I think they will continue to solicit the advice and input of innkeepers as their site continues to develop. TripAdvisor’s scope in the lodging world is much greater than the B&B industry, but I believe one online review on a B&B (especially a negative review) can be more impactful than one review on a hotel. It’s a matter of proportionality, and I’m not quite sure they understand that yet. By and large, their site accommodates and serves hoteliers.
With a much smaller inventory and customer base, B&Bs stand less of a chance of pulling in a high volume of reviews compared to our hotel brethren. The review system works best with volume. It’s just like when PAII conducts a survey; results are more valid when we have 500 participants in the survey, than if we had 50. The overall impression of a B&B or hotel will be more representative of the average customer experience when there are a large number of reviews. While the system is still young and the number of reviews still rather low, I am concerned that guests will more likely disregard a negative review about a hotel than a negative review about a B&B. Instinctively, a site visitor will assume that a couple of negatives review he or she is reading about a hotel are only a couple of reviews among thousands of stays. But, a few negative reviews on a B&B might seem to the untrained eye as more representative of the truth, simply because the inn might only have 4 rooms.
This is only the tip of the iceberg. It’s a brave new world in which we live. I hear from innkeepers fairly frequently about their grievances with the online review phenomenon. What are your thoughts on the ethics issue? What are your frustrations, or stories of how online reviews have benefited your business? I welcome you to comment on the Innkeeping Blog by clicking here.
Tags: Ethics, Online Reviews
Posted in Online Reviews | 17 Comments »
Jay Karen, President & CEO of the
April 30, 2008 at 6:19 pm...
Companies need to survey their best customers, not those with an axe to grind. Notably, it is more common to customer survey the wrong customer in the business-to-business market.
May 1, 2008 at 12:32 pm...
I have only four rooms and if I got a negative review, I would make sure I had done all I could to remedy or console the guest, and then realize that everyone cannot be consoled. I do the best I can and then have to let it go. Knowing that the majority of my guests, after just one year being open, absolutely love it here!
May 1, 2008 at 11:59 pm...
Jay, you’ve covered two issues here – one being the quality of a speaker at the PAII conference and the other being the issue of online reviews. As a conference speaker of many years and a marketer who advises our clients on the online review process – I’ve had a lot of experience in both areas so let’s discuss them individually.
Online Reviews:
When TripAdvisor (TA) first came out I warned innkeepers that there was a new 900lb Gorilla in the industry. My advice for dealing with them is very simple: if you want to make a gorilla happy, feed it bananas or in this case, good reviews. Secondly, don’t shout at the darkness, turn on a light. If you get a bad review, bury it with good reviews. I could go on but I reserve more in-depth advice for my clients. Reviews are here to stay – embrace them and you succeed, fight against them and you lose. Pretty simple. Using the weight of PAII to approach TA is a good idea – I wish you luck with it.
Speakers – The Good, The Bad and The Disastrous
What Daniel Levine suggested to your audience was not only unethical but completely irresponsible as it could ruin the bottom line of an inn for many years to come. This guy falls under the category of “Disastrous” but he’s neither the first nor last conference speaker to lead innkeepers astray. Last year I dropped off the PAII speaker selection committee when PAII gave serious consideration to speakers who were known to be unethical in their business practices. Unfortunately, PAII went ahead and selected this person despite my and other speakers warning your staff. When you ignore the warnings of those of us who have seen this kind of thing happen before and personally know many of the other speakers, you’re on your own. Who on earth vetted Daniel Levine anyway?
Every time a major conference rolls around we warn our clients to be careful not to simply follow the advice of conference speakers and this year was no exception. Frankly, I’m glad we do this as it was reported to me that two of your speakers told innkeepers that they should never participate in pay-per-click (PPC) search engines. A while back you sat in on a meeting where we were able to show a client that they are receiving a ten-fold return on their PPC expenditures. So you tell me – did those speakers do your audience a service or disservice? More bluntly put – did PAII do a disservice to conference attendees by not vetting more carefully those speakers?
PAII runs a good conference for the most part but one area they have not done well historically with is vetting the speakers. I chose not to speak at the last two conferences simply because it’s hard trying to educate innkeepers when so many of the speakers are giving them wrong information. It’s too bad really – we have some great speakers in this industry but unless you listen to their peers you’ll never know who’s good and who’s disastrous. Just because someone wrote a book about internet marketing doesn’t make them an expert and especially not an expert on our industry.
Better luck next time.
Scott Crumpton
http://www.WhiteStoneMarketing.com
May 2, 2008 at 2:21 am...
Wow, Scott!! I have never seen “ego” spelled in such large capital letters before!
In the 1970s and 1980s Xerox staved off competition from the Japanese by embracing customer satisfaction and asking customers what they wanted and how they thought Xerox was doing providing that service. When people were asked what they thought of the service Xerox was providing, two things happened. First, people learned that Xerox cared what they thought and the second thing was that Xerox learned what it needed to do better.
The process is called “Total Quality Management” and it’s available for the price of a book or article by or about Malcolm Baldridge. You don’t need to hire an expensive consultant to find out about the concept.
Every business needs to make ethical judgements every day. You don’t need a consultant to tell you what is right and what is wrong either.
Customer feedback is vital to a business. Instead of looking at customer reviews and trying to figure out how to “game” them, business people should look at them and use them to figure out what they need to do better. Take each review as a valuable opportunity. If it is a good review, figure out what you did for that reviewer and make sure that you continue to do the things you did right. If the review is negative, take it to heart and use it to figure out what you can do better. Someone has taken the time to write a review and tell you what you need to fix. Instead of rationalizing why they were unfair, respond to the negative review and tell them how you are going to do better if they come back.
There are two rules in business:
1. the customer is always right.
2. when in doubt, refer to rule number 1.
If you went to a restaurant and ordered fish and they served you steak, how would you feel? Now imagine that they tried to justify why they served you something other that what you ordered. How would you feel then? Is there a big tip in their future? I doubt it.
May 2, 2008 at 3:39 am...
I understand the question to be “What should PAII do?”
The biggest distinguishing factor between a “Trade” or “Occupation” and a “Profession” is that the “Profession” has a thoughtful code of ethics. The Association that adopts the code of ethics for its members and the code is well publiczed both to members and the public so that the members comply and the public confidence in the industry is enhanced.In some ways this is similar to and has similar benefits to the quality assurance/inspection programs used by most State Associations.
What can PAII do? Establish a professional ethics committee to examine the ethics codes of other professional organizations and propose a special code for Innkeepers. Look at American Bar Association; American Mediacal Associatio; National Association of Realtors; Society for Professionals in Dispute Resolution (SPIDR) and perhaps others and pick out relevant sections. Some universal pronouncements like “Always do the right thing.” is not enough. The code should have some specifics and should be tailored to our industry.
When a draft is prepared it should be publicized to the membership for comment. Ultimately, the membership should hear the recommendation of the Board and should vote for adoption.
Adopting and promoting and enforcing a code of ethics is something that ONLY a Professional Association can do and PAII should do it.
Herb Warren
http://www.oldlouisvilleinns.com
Herb@dupontmansion.com
May 2, 2008 at 4:17 am...
I could not agree more with Scott’s comment “If you get a bad review, bury it with good reviews.” Our B&B is currently the #1 rated B&B on TA in Homer Alaska. However, our very first review was an unjust negative comment. We were disheartened when discovering it by accident.
Thanks to our wonderful guests, some of them were really angry after reading the biased review, and they responded positively on TA.
The very 1st killer review was there for a number of weeks and eventually was removed from the TA site. Our crisis turned into an wonderful opportunity of promoting Halcyon Heights B&B.
May 2, 2008 at 1:46 pm...
Wow – telling innkeepers to write their own reviews is just as dishonest as telling them to hide the income from those 4 extra rooms in the rear from the IRS. If an innkeeper heard Levine’s msg and actually did it – then their ethics were questionable to begin with. After four years of innkeeping, we just received our first scorching review. It angered me at first – and then I had to do what I’ve been taught in all my management and customer service training over the years. Take the review – read it objectively and see if there’s any “truth” there – and is there anything that I can improve. There will always be things that we overlook and need to be reminded of. These are usually noticed by an outsider’s eyes. They had pointed out a couple of things that I needed to change. AND – GIVE READERS SOME CREDIT. When I’m shopping for hotels on line – I read the reviews. You can quickly spot the “angry – felt cheated” guest. I always take these with a grain of salt – and move on to the next review. If I see one awful review among several good ones – then I assume that one guest had a unique bad experience or that the guest was the “unpleasable” type and wouldn’t have been happy anyway.
May 2, 2008 at 3:07 pm...
Like you, Jay, we observed from the back of the room a collective dipping of shoulders when Mr. Levine talked about gaming the TripAdvisor system. Kudos to you for taking the bull by the horns the next morning. Reviews are incredibly important, and they are a fact of life, like them or hate them. The debate over whether soliciting reviews is a form of “gaming” or not will wage on, especially when only happy guests are asked to do so. But that’s business, and it’s evolution. Hang onto your seats! We’re not done yet!
May 2, 2008 at 5:27 pm...
Having been in the hotel business for 8 years and now a new innkeeper, reviews are part of business. I do believe there is a way for innkeepers to “respond” to a review that has been posted. Do your best, provide the best service possible and always encourage feedback from your guests while they are still with you. Seek to remedy that which you can; you will NEVER please everyone. What goes around, comes around. Be ethical in all that you do so you feel good about how you are running your business. We are in the hospitality business to serve others! Let’s do it with excellence.
May 3, 2008 at 1:39 am...
Some very interesting comments regarding guest produced inn reviews. As many have said, they’re here to stay (at least for a while). We’ve operated two inns for over 10 years and have seen various trends come and go. Quite frankly, I don’t get that excited about the “advice” from most PAII vendor speakers. Most have some axe to grind and it is so easy to give advice. We just work hard to deliver quality accommodations, good food and warm and knowledgeable service. The rest falls into line with little effort. Don’t manipulate the review process but don’t be passive about it either. Our two inns have been in the number 1 and 2 position on TA for several years in a very competitive market with over 25 b&b’s and small inns.
Here are two things that I wish PAII would do: 1. Don’t give vendors such a free hand at being speakers at the PAII conference where we innkeepers essentially have to listen to their sales pitches. Bedandbreakfast.com , just as one example, has had way too much opportunity to “feather-their-nest” at innkeeper’s expense for far too many years. Sure, they are a reliable sponsor of PAII functions, but lets not loose sight of their intense profit motive.
Secondly, PAII should try to work with the numerous B&B internet directories to prevent the great amount of duplication that is occurring. How many directories need to add guest comment sections? This seems to be a very “me too” type of business with little or no originality. If one directory adds recipes, then the next one thinks they have to add them too. Why not have one or a few locations for inn guest comments? Its silly that they all seem to think they have to do the same thing. The more this foolishness proliferates, the more time it takes from innkeepers and the less time our customers get. The internet inn directory businesses should serve the inn industry, not the other way around. PAII and Select Registry could play a more influential role in balancing this dynamic.
One last question: if hundreds and thousands of innkeepers ask guests to make comments about their stay at a particular property (and presumably bias the reviews to the favorable side), what purpose is being served by this review system? Maybe professional travel writer reviews as in the guide books of old (eg. Frommers and Fodors) are just as good. Something tells me that this too shall pass! Walt innkeeper@farolito.com
May 3, 2008 at 2:18 am...
Good comments all around people.
Tom (or Kathy), thanks for the personal attack on the ego comment. Do I have an ego? Sure as defined by “Your consciousness of your own identity.” Is mine over inflated? No, I don’t think so — I’m just very conscious of exactly who I am. I have a formal education in marketing and am an expert in marketing lodging properties. I’ve spent 70 hours a week for the last thirteen years doing nothing but thinking about, reading about, writing about and actually doing the business of marketing lodging properties and especially bed and breakfast inns. So when I speak on the subject, it’s from a point of authority. You can see it as ego, I prefer to see it as expertise. Does this and the fact that I’ve heard most of the speakers in our industry present many times over make me an expert on who the good and bad speakers are? Ya, pretty much.
With regard to your mini-education on Total Quality Management — that’s “part” of what we tell our clients. However, the customer is NOT always right and the TA review may not always be from a customer/guest. According to your theory the guest who is dissatisfied that you don’t allow the burning of candles in your rooms is right when in fact, they’re dead wrong. We saw an exact case of this a while back where the innkeeper confiscated candles after the guests burned the lamp shade in the room. The guest wrote a very nasty review in response. Guess what, the guest was wrong.
As others have suggested, this would be a good time to write a management response on TA and sometimes that’s helpful. Sometimes you need to listen to the complaint and actually fix the problem. Other times you need to ignore the attack and just bury the bad review with good ones.
The point of my post was that the writing was on the wall with PAII speakers when I warned them of the problems a year ago. Had they headed that warning it “might” have lead to a better vetting of the speakers and “might” have prevented the problem which Jay has now presented. Furthermore, we can all hope that PAII learns from the mistake and takes greater steps to prevent such occurrences in the future.
As to what PAII should do, I think that last paragraph answers the question.
Herb, I agree with you completely about the code of ethics but here’s the problem. Years ago (10+ years I think) we complained to PAII that they had just allowed a vendor to join who was known to be HIGHLY unethical. In other words, we wanted a code of ethics for the vendors they represent as otherwise, what did the PAII logo represent — that they had paid their dues? PAII ignored the request. Flash forward to the Myrtle Beach conference last year and the debacle where UXL screwed over a lot of innkeepers. If I remember correctly, the response from Jay was that they could be sued for turning away a vendor or for that matter, a vendor who wanted to be a member. (Jay, if that’s not correct feel free to elaborate but that’s how I recall it ended).
So while I would LOVE to see a code of ethics for both vendors and innkeepers it probably won’t happen. It’s why I dropped my PAII membership once before and it will probably cause me to do so again.
Scott Crumpton
White Stone Marketing
Professional Internet Marketing for Boutique Lodging Properties
http://www.whitestonemarketing.com
May 3, 2008 at 2:18 am...
Good comments all around people.
Tom (or Kathy), thanks for the personal attack on the ego comment. Do I have an ego? Sure as defined by “Your consciousness of your own identity.” Is mine over inflated? No, I don’t think so — I’m just very conscious of exactly who I am. I have a formal education in marketing and am an expert in marketing lodging properties. I’ve spent 70 hours a week for the last thirteen years doing nothing but thinking about, reading about, writing about and actually doing the business of marketing lodging properties and especially bed and breakfast inns. So when I speak on the subject, it’s from a point of authority. You can see it as ego, I prefer to see it as expertise. Does this and the fact that I’ve heard most of the speakers in our industry present many times over make me an expert on who the good and bad speakers are? Ya, pretty much.
With regard to your mini-education on Total Quality Management — that’s “part” of what we tell our clients. However, the customer is NOT always right and the TA review may not always be from a customer/guest. According to your theory the guest who is dissatisfied that you don’t allow the burning of candles in your rooms is right when in fact, they’re dead wrong. We saw an exact case of this a while back where the innkeeper confiscated candles after the guests burned the lamp shade in the room. The guest wrote a very nasty review in response. Guess what, the guest was wrong.
As others have suggested, this would be a good time to write a management response on TA and sometimes that’s helpful. Sometimes you need to listen to the complaint and actually fix the problem. Other times you need to ignore the attack and just bury the bad review with good ones.
The point of my post was that the writing was on the wall with PAII speakers when I warned them of the problems a year ago. Had they headed that warning it “might” have lead to a better vetting of the speakers and “might” have prevented the problem which Jay has now presented. Furthermore, we can all hope that PAII learns from the mistake and takes greater steps to prevent such occurrences in the future.
As to what PAII should do, I think that last paragraph answers the question.
Herb, I agree with you completely about the code of ethics but here’s the problem. Years ago (10+ years I think) we complained to PAII that they had just allowed a vendor to join who was known to be HIGHLY unethical. In other words, we wanted a code of ethics for the vendors they represent as otherwise, what did the PAII logo represent — that they had paid their dues? PAII ignored the request. Flash forward to the Myrtle Beach conference last year and the debacle where UXL screwed over a lot of innkeepers. If I remember correctly, the response from Jay was that they could be sued for turning away a vendor or for that matter, a vendor who wanted to be a member. (Jay, if that’s not correct feel free to elaborate but that’s how I recall it ended).
So while I would LOVE to see a code of ethics for both vendors and innkeepers it probably won’t happen. It’s why I dropped my PAII membership once before and it will probably cause me to do so again.
Scott Crumpton
White Stone Marketing
Professional Internet Marketing for Boutique Lodging Properties
http://www.whitestonemarketing.com
May 3, 2008 at 4:33 am...
Wow, this has been interesting! While I understand the frustration of the speaker suggesting unethical behavior, let us not lose sight that once the speaker is standing before the crowd, it is next to impossible to control their tongue. When this happens, we step in and do exactly as Jay did and I feel Jay did an excellent job the following morning. He set the record straight by stating that PAII did not condone this unethical practice. What more can he do? What more can anyone on the PAII Board do? What happened, happened and there is nothing any of us can do to change that. Come on folks, let it go and move on. Jay said he was appalled and again, the next morning he delivered a formal rebuttal. I certainly thought it was adequate.
While I appreciate the energy in this blog, would it not be better used in support of our association, instead of continuing to beat this dead horse? The adage “one bad apple can spoil the entire sack” does not have to be the case here. I personally dismissed the speaker’s remarks, concentrated on the other 99% that were great and moved on. I did so because I would never do what he suggested. I am in the business because I enjoy the business, but for those who are not playing fair, remember, what goes around, comes around… you reap what you sow.
Let us not dwell on what should have happened 10 years ago, but concentrate on what our future holds. Yes, PAII does need to set some guidelines, but give them a chance. We have new leadership and with our support, the sky is the limit. I have seen many changes since Jay has joined us and given the chance we will see many more.
Jay, I applaud you and your staff and thank you for what you are doing for the industry. We needed you… you are a Godsend.
Hoyt Dottry, President
SC B&B Association
May 3, 2008 at 12:00 pm...
Just a couple comments Hoyt. I’m not beating on Jay — Jay did the right thing and frankly is handling the situation VERY well. My point was that it’s possible this could have been avoided and by discussing it openly, maybe it will be avoided in the future.
Jay is now the fourth director of PAII that I’ve talked with openly about these issues. I’m not dwelling on what happened 10 years ago — I’m dwelling on what’s STILL happening after ten years of talking. The keynote and his comments are just one example of a speaker misleading innkeepers. As I’ve said before, I can’t remember a conference where at least one speaker didn’t tell the audience something very misleading. Sure that’s going to happen but if you vet the speakers a little better you can usually avoid the majority of it.
I think my favorite time was when an association pulled in the marketing director from Sea World and Universal Studios and he told the audience that “your marketing is a one-time shot — nobody will ever stay at your inn more than once.” Sure the innkeepers realized he didn’t know what he was talking about but now you’re wasting an hour listening to this buffoon and you paid to be there! Worse yet are the internet marketers that give bad SEO advice as innkeepers really aren’t knowledgeable enough to realize it will actually hurt their position in Google. Since a high ranking on Google is an incredible asset, screwing this up can significantly hurt your bottom line.
Quite honestly, I don’t know why I waste my breath but I guess I’d rather see PAII succeed rather than fail. I earn my living by bringing business to a small number of innkeepers but it used to be a huge number at our former company. I thought I could help a large number of inns but found my limitations rather quickly not to mention the extreme dislike innkeepers have for large companies. So yes, I live a bit vicariously through PAII in the hopes that they will be the vehicle that will help all innkeepers.
When I (or anyone) warns PAII of a problem on the horizon and they dismiss the warning it helps no one. The UXL problem last year could have been avoided had my repeated warnings over vendor ethics (or rather the lack of) been headed. Likewise, I warned PAII a year ago about vetting the speakers better and it was ignored. I’m not all-knowledgeable but these problems are nothing new and easy to see coming. What Jay does differently about them will define his tenure at PAII.
Okay, so it wasn’t just a couple comments. Sorry, thoroughness was always my strong point and brevity… hmmm, should I keep explaining
Scott Crumpton
White Stone Marketing
Professional Internet Marketing for Boutique Lodging Properties
http://www.whitestonemarketing.com
May 6, 2008 at 3:10 pm...
I myself have been morally confronted by combating bad reviews. We all know that in this industry, there are some people that are dissatisfied before they even get to your inn. It is a fact of life that some people will just never be happy. Yet it always seems as though these are the only people that write reviews! So yes, it is so tempting to hide those reviews among a slew of positive one’s. TripAdvisor especially, gets under my skin, but at least they allow management to post rebuttal comments (although they get to choose if they will actually post the rebuttals, which seems unfair as well.) What makes the consumer so much more worthy to complain? We are all people and if I want to rebuke a comment from a miserable human being than I think it is only fair. Why do they deserve so much freedom to complain, and we are left to take it? The world has for so long encouraged snobbery in the service industry, that some have forgotten that we are people too. It may seem morally appalling to some to suggest covering bad reviews by writing your own good one’s, but I think it is appalling that people spend so much time bad mouthing a group of individuals whose sole purpose is to make you happy at ANY cost to their own self respect. So to all the snobbish “guests” get over yourselves and get a life. Learn to appreciate all the people who are struggling to get by in a world who’s economy is plummeting and who are so dependant on your business that they will allow themselves to feel like a lower organism just to make sure you don’t write a bad review and destroy their business.
May 7, 2008 at 3:37 am...
It’s interesting that the same PAII conference with a keynoter of questionable ethics (and also some good info) ALSO included a workshop entitled “Ethical Wisdom”, led by Jack Gilbert. This workshop was splendid, and spoke to the very core & hearts of the innkeepers that attended. Perhaps he should be invited to return–in light of this conversation.
Jay was clear, articulate, and forthright in addressing the issue at the conference and in the PAII newsletter– I very much appreciate his intelligent response.
Scott raised several concerns/complaints about PAII conferences & speakers. Yes, vetting is important. In fact, such questions were posed with this year’s program planning committees.
I see the professionalism of innkeeepers increasing. Scott’s concerns of vendor access/erroneous information should be heard, appropriate/good vetting of speakers should be completed, and that said…his comments strike me as a bit condescending.
As a professional innkeeper, I learn gain tremendous insights and information from every PAII convention. I also know and expect the vendors to be selling their products. It is my job to do research, to know my needs and the needs of my inn/guests, and to ask questions. Lots of questions of the vendors.
Most innkeepers choose their workshop attendance based upon their needs, and when in a workshop that doesn’t fit their needs, they get up and walk out. We are too self-directed to sit for an hour when the topic/speaker is simply not working for us. Most of us come from educated backgrounds with good experience in other careers–and are commited to making this business flourish while bringing us joy.
I look forward to a bright innkeeping future, even as we face the economy challenges. I apreciate PAII’s assistance in leading this industry into the future, and anticipate Jay’s energy, creativity and experience to provide positive influence.
May 29, 2008 at 10:08 am...
Jay, I know I’m way behind in reading and responding to this blog, but if you have a continuing dialog with Trip Advisor, perhaps you’ll want to add this to your arsenal. I don’t check TA very often, but recently I found a negative review that was based on a stay almost three years before. Needless to say I was not able to start a dialogue with the guest, because I had no idea who they were. TA neither published my response to the reviewer, nor responded to my query as to why they would publish a review based on such a long past stay. I guess as Scott suggested, I’m forced to ask other guests to review to counteract the negative. It’s especially frustrating to know that the review was there on display for a month and a half without my knowledge.
Brandywine Girl