A row between Tripadvisor and a hotel in the UKÂ is intensifying as the review giant hits back over claims it red-flagged the property unfairly.
TripAdvisor says the red badge was applied to the  Riverside Hotel in Evesham after an investigation, not because of an isolated review but a belief that the property owners had fraudulently posted a positive review of its own hotel and a negative review against a rival property.
TripAdvisor says it issued warnings to the owner on two occasions but decided to apply the red badge because the activity continued.
However, hotel owner Deborah Sinclair denies any fraudulent activity and says she received no communication from the review giant.
Sinclair says reviews posted about her hotel are not fraudulent including a positive review posted by a genuinely satisfied customer who posted using the property’s wifi.
Sinclair says she has lost business as a result of the red badge and is planning legal action.
She also believes she may have a case for joining a potential civil action against TripAdvisor in the US led by reputation management firm Kwikchex.
“I have no answer for all  this other than I’m going to take it legal. It’s defaming my business. I think Tripadvisor lost credibility a long time ago.”
Tripadviser says only a fraction of a percent of properties have a red badge applied and badge expiry is on a case by case basis.
In the UK, TripAdvisor says it is co-operating with an investigation launched by the Advertising Standards Authority last month after an official complaint of untrustworthy reviews from Kwikchex.
In January this year, Dragon’s Den entrepreneur Duncan Bannatyne mounted a campaign against TripAdvisor after a review compared his hotel to Fawlty Towers.
Last week Reevoo, which features reviews of consumer goods and plans to launch into the travel space, introduced a manifesto to protect consumers against fraudulent and untrustworthy reviews.
I just checked their reviews and there are at least 2 of them which could have been written by only by someone close to the property, either an employee or a friend…
The hotel owner might be genuine in what he states but in that case, there is a need for better control of what people related to the property do.
It is almost impossible to prove that these reviews are fake but I’ve been reading thousand of reviews over the last few years and few signs in reviews about this property are, at a 99% success rate, exactly what proves that they were not genuine.
Then, the way Tripadvisor communicates (or not) with property managers is another subject and I agree with the hotel manager on that. Stating that there are no fake reviews on this page is simply false
Having been on the wrong side of a few false and vindictive TA reviews (some of which I was able to get removed, others not) plus endured the snide comments “offline” from competitors about my bars genuine good reviews. I have some experience and communications with TA over the past 12 months.
At the end of the day, I think TA would argue that she’s not lost business because of the red flag, but because of reviews and photographs like the one by F1Macca from Manchester, laidbacknz and cpvmturner. These are so damning that any amount of “false” good reviews could not undo the damage in the short term.
What I will concur with the hotel owner is, TA has grown powerful enough to have a dramatic “positive or negative” affect on a proprieters business. I’m not sure that’s such a good thing when it’s so open to abuse and the proprietor is deemed guilty until proven innocent.
I agree with Perry’s comments here.
You have cut off the bottom of the review listings for this hotel, but out of its 113 reviews, 15 were “poor” (13%) and 36 were “terrible” (32%)
Which means for this hotel of 12 rooms, 45% of the reviewers would not recommend it.
I dislike Tripadvisor’s all powerful eye; especially in regards to them now giving greater credence to traveller photos – which cannot be removed, even three years after they were posted and the hotel now refurbished (in my case).
Also the fact that one of the largest hotel chains (Accor) can now have people post ANONYMOUS reviews “An Accor traveller” – all of which are glowing; whereas the ones for the chain’s hotels that aren’t anonymous are anything but glowing.
But in this case, while the red badge is a bad thing, I think the owner is using the opportunity to tag along to the other faults of Tripadvisor, rather than accept her product might not be the best and THAT is why here business has dropped off.
My question is does trip advisor have the right to publish information if a property chooses and requests not to participate? There has been so much discussion over the validity of the forum as a review source and the fact that TA is owned by the same people as Expedia means it can not truly be considered independent. As such, as a business, if we can choose which companies have the right to represent us via sales and rates contracts, why cant we just choose not to be listed with trip advisor????
“TripAdvisor says it issued warnings to the owner on two occasions but decided to apply the red badge because the activity continued.”
Produce the (I assume) emails.
Case closed.
This is something very common in hotels. A friend mentioned of a hotel in Southend does thesame to outbeat other hotels in the chain . It is healthy to compete, probably not at others expense. When the cases like this appears . I don feel tripadvisor is doing anything outside it’s powers to stop false reviews
I think Brad makes a good point – questioning whether trip advisor has the right to publish information if a property chooses and requests not to participate?
Chris Emmins, Co-Founder of Kwikchex also raises some good points in a letter to a trip advisor supporter http://www.kwikchex.com/2011/09/correspondence-with-a-dedicated-tripadvisor-supporter/
Deson, mentions the photos which I think is a shocking policy by TA and I’m surprised that a photgraph is all but impossible to remove, even if someone adds one that isn’t of the property.
I mentioned in a previous post “having been on the wrong side of a few false and vindictive TA reviews.” In my particular case – at the time – I had 53 Excellent and 1 Very Good review out of my first 54.
I fired a lady who I – more than – suspected of stealing from me and whose husband made the veiled threat “you’ve just made the biggest mistake of your life.” I warned TA in advance a couple of days before the bad reviews started coming in – and come in they did. Within a week I had 6 bad reviews of which 3 were finally removed after I flagged them.
Annoying because I had warned TA in advance as to what was going to happen and they didn’t really seem that interested. If a review “looked” genuine then it was deemed to be “genuine”.
All 6 were “obviously” from this womans friends. All inconsistent with what was previously written, all mentioned how wonderful she was and all within a few days of me “letting her go”. TA left the 3 average ratings on. I guess because they were at least average so looked genuine.
I can’t prove it and neither can they but the benefit of the doubt always seems to go with the “customer.”
Not sure that’s fair but as owners who reap the benefits of TA we have to live with it. (currently 123 Excellent and 6 Very Good and 4 average out of 135) so I guess the spiteful run out of friends sooner or later.
If you’re wondering about the other 2 reviews I received – 1 very poor and 1 terrible. Both were from people who didn’t eat at our venue but punished us because I couldn’t book them in. How petty is that? Dropped us from number 1 to number 3. Such is life.
Is there a fairer system? I don’t know but for the first time in 10 years I am going to allow user content on Pub and Bar Network, but I’m giving the licensee control of what goes public. (a bit like linkedin). If a review (recommendation) is good, it will surely go public, if it’s bad, I’m sure it will stay private.
However, the licensee will hopefully correct any issues the customer brings up without suffering loss of earnings. That’s how I plan to start out anyway, I’m sure it will evolve. Any thoughts on a fairer system of reviews?
The biggest issue I find with Trip Advisory is that they seem to see themselves as the self appointed quality control forum with out having any responsibility for the content that is posted and thereby published/disseminated by them. Whilst I think that customer advocates are important, both parties ( the hoteliers & the customers) need to be guided and controlled, not just the hoteliers and when a customer posts something that is not ” constructive” maybe it should be sent to the hotel in question first rather then just published for all to see.
Yes I think that based on having look at the reviews in question that there is no question that the hotel in question above has posted false positive reviews and probably deserves to be punished so take them down, don’t out them. If Trip Advisory is truly genuine in its claim to be the number one holiday planning source for travelers, not supporting a property by refusing to list it should be enough. Perry I think it is a sad thing that now, when a staff member is let go, we have to advise someone like trip advisor in the hope that they will cooperate if the person chooses to use the forum to defame their employer.
My other question is why don’t social media sources such as trip advisor have to comply to the same regulations that general media do by way of confirming a story prior to publishing?? If the New York Post publishes a defamatory and damaging article about a business or individual, they are subject to legal action if it is deemed that the article caused financial damage. Why is Trip Advisory above the law?? At least with Online Travel Agencies, the comments posted are only from confirmed customers so they know they have actually experienced the property they are commenting on.
I so agree, how TA can be so powerful it is crazy, as they do not have in place a full proof systme, I had the same thing happen to me liek Perry I have 90% positive reviews and have even won 3 awards from TA, plus from other magazine world awards, I had this couple who booked only for two days this in its self is odd due to our location average stay 7 nights to 14 nights, anyway they were strange from start to finish.
all other guets were nice but them so not normal and wanted a discount as they said the wi fi was not working I pointed out we do not even have wifi and never offer it ?
anyway they went back and sent in 5 fake reviews full of fake accusations and even fake photos i did point this out to TA and they did take off 2 of the reviews ,but left the rest I was so of course this did do some damage but you know my view is if people see you have endless positive reviews and believe the negative garbage the fake one posted then you do not want this person on your property anyway.
Plus I believe in what i have and know that the fake accusatons are not true to it does not bother me at all and I keep postive and it works, I keep up the positive energy, and to all the nasty people who post nasty fake reviews it will come back on them so this is at least some sort of compensation….
Oh gosh I have just read back my post I am so sorry for all the spelling error and typos, I did the comment in rather a rush so i hope you can understand?