The Innkeeping Blog

Two times this week I have been contacted by innkeepers who were threatened or potentially threatened with fraudulent reviews to extort money or to inflict damage.

One innkeeper wrote to me the following:

I am having job performance issues with my college student – he perceives that the problem is me and not his job performance.  He relayed to another staff member (how do they think I won’t find out?) that his friends said he should go on TripAdvisor and pretend to write a review as a guest and make a comment that they liked everything about the inn, except how the owner treated her employees.

Another innkeeper told me that one of his guests stayed for a few nights and said she suffered several bed bug bites during her stay.  To make a long story short, they had the inn inspected for evidence of bed bugs (and they do wrap their mattresses), and there was no evidence.  The guest mentioned the possibility of writing a review on TripAdvisor about it, before she requested a full refund for her stay.  The innkeeper naturally doesn’t want to give in (and does not plan to).

We’ve known for a long time that people have been using TripAdvisor as a weapon in certain circumstances.  The most common one I’ve heard about is when guests want to cancel towards the last minute, but they don’t want to pay the agreed-upon cancellation fee.  If the innkeeper holds true to the policy, the guests get upset and threaten a negative review on TripAdvisor if they don’t get their deposit back.  This is despicable and unscrupulous in my humble opinion, but it happens.  Because the system does not verify the veracity of this guest (Did he actually make a reservation?  Did he stay there?  Who knows?), and because reviewers can remain anonymous, reviewers have the upper hand in these unfortunate situations – a true weakness in today’s online review systems.  When I’ve told stories like this to my contacts at TripAdvisor in the past, they seem genuine in their desire to fight fraud.  After all, their system becomes less valuable as more fraud gets into the database of reviews.  They have automated tools that can detect some of it, but the rest is left to human interpretation of the event as explained by the reviewer and rebutted by the innkeeper.

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Ok, so I have to confess about something.  Everyone who knows me and PAII also knows that you would be hard-pressed to find someone more out front than moi with regard to representing the B&B industry’s interest on most matters – especially the phenomenon of online consumer reviews.  Two years ago I engaged our industry in the discussion and began “lobbying” various entities (i.e. TripAdvisor, Yelp, etc) for changes I felt were needed.  At the same time, I brought up a criticism to BedandBreakfast.com’s top brass, Eric Goldreyer and John Banczak, about their review policies.  We were actually having drinks in the historic Driskill Hotel in Austin, just blocks from their office, having pretty lengthy and serious discussion about many matters.

My criticism at the time was this:  I did not particularly like the fact that they required a guest to furnish proof of stay when wanting to post a negative review about a B&B, but didn’t necessarily require it of those wanting to write a positive review.  While I realize this was an “innkeeper friendly” policy, and noted that they aimed to please innkeepers, but felt in the long run it might be a disservice.   My concern was two fold.  First, I felt it in someway violated the “spirit” of Web 2.0.  Why treat one guest differently than another?  Web 2.0 is supposed to be this great “democratization” of web content, right?  But I was also concerned that their site would be filled almost exclusively with positive reviews, because it was more difficult to post a negative review.  Who was going to spend time digging up a receipt or other form of proof of stay?  If guests browsing the site only saw positive reviews everywhere, when they anticipated encountering a spectrum of reviews, they might not consider the review portion of BedandBreakfast.com very legitimate.

After a couple of years of hindsight and speaking or emailing with hundreds of innkeepers on the topic of online reviews, I think requiring proof of stay when wanting to post a negative review is a good policy, simply because the damage that a false negative review can cause is too detrimental.  I think the online review phenomenon is certainly a net-positive for our industry – no question about it.  But when transgressions can be prevented, they should be prevented.  Innkeepers work too hard to fall victim to fraudulent, false reviews.  Maybe I was thinking as much as a consumer as an industry representative…concerned that I wouldn’t see negative reviews that might have made it to the site if it weren’t for a restrictive procedure.

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As most PAII members and blog followers know, for nearly two years I have been meeting with TripAdvisor about the B&B industry’s issues with their web site.  With tens of millions of visitors each month, there has been no question about the importance of their system to even the smallest B&Bs around the continent and beyond.  It is in our industry’s interest that I meet with them and share our perspective on a host of issues.  I met with senior members of their team on May 20^th at their offices outside Boston, and here is my “brief” report on the issues we discussed.

Keep in mind that the issues below represent a portion of the ongoing matters we discuss.  There are some larger issues at play (i.e. not requiring proof of stay from the reviewer when an innkeeper protests a fraudulent review) that we will often discuss, but the list I try to bring to the table involves impactful issues that I think could be changed in the near or foreseeable future, if our case is compelling enough.

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Recently some changes were being tested on TripAdvisor’s “Tourism Pages” and it seemed there was a threat that B&Bs would be obscured on these all-important pages.  Tourism Pages (or city pages, as I like to call them) are where many travelers go to learn about a destination – many times before even thinking about where they’re going to stay.  I had a recent fantasy of taking my wife to Cinque Terre, Italy, (after a great recommendation to go there from the fantastic innkeeper at Akwaaba DC, Kristin Singleton), and I started my homework on Cinque Terre on TripAdvisor.  The Tourism Page is where I started my homework.  I imagine a lot of travelers do the same, although I’m sure many already know about your inn and go directly to TripAdvisor to read reviews.  Nevertheless, exposure for B&Bs on the Tourism Pages is very important, which is why some innkeepers reported concern that “Top-Rated B&Bs” were disappearing from some Tourism Pages.  Only “Top-Rated Hotels” were showing.  This was all during what appeared to be some beta testing by TripAdvisor, because it was happening in some cities, but not others.

TripAdvisor started to hear the complaints right away from innkeepers.  Our Innkeeping Forum was buzzing with discussion, and some innkeepers were encouraging folks to start a campaign to get as many innkeepers as possible to submit grievances.  And this was all happening at the same time TripAdvisor was offering a 50% off deal to innkeepers on their relatively new Business Listings program.  You can read all about that here, but the gist is – pay an annual fee and have your phone, email and web link added to your TripAdvisor property page.  Innkeepers on the fence about Business Listings were scratching their heads – why pay for Business Listings if B&Bs can’t be readily found on the Tourism Pages like they had been for years?

I give credit to TripAdvisor.  They have some senior staff who are involved with PAII.  Brian Payea, their Trade Relations Manager, pops in from time-to-time on our forum to offer innkeepers advice, clear up misunderstandings and to announce things like the changes made earlier this week to the Tourism Pages.  They listen to what innkeepers have to say.  I’ve been meeting with them regularly for nearly two years, and they’ve always been willing to listen – and have made some improvements to their site based on our ongoing dialogue.  So, what changes were made this week?  First of all, “Top-Rated B&Bs” are back on the pages.  Thank you, TripAdvisor!  Furthermore, if you go to a Tourism Page that has more B&Bs than hotels, you’ll notice that “Top-Rated B&B”s are shown above “Top-Rated Hotels.”  This makes good sense for the web site visitor, because if they’re checking out a town with more B&Bs than hotels, they’re probably more interested in B&Bs.  This is TripAdvisor’s way of improving the experience for the web site visitor.  When doing homework on Cape May, New Jersey, it makes good sense to showcase the B&Bs first.

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