Have you been penalised for writing a hotel review?

I think that sending the hotel the link to your trip advisor profile is really brilliant, and will do it in future. Many thanks.

Why not also write a review if the hotel is bad? Why not warn others to avoid the hotel or to avoid specific problematic rooms or floors? If everyone followed your approach, then Tripadvisor would only contains good reviews, which would mean that potential customers would be unable to identify bad hotels.

Also write a review if the Hotel is mediocre or just okay.
TA and othe rreview sites tend to be populated with superb and terrible reviews not much help when looking for a good value 1 night stay anywhere as long as it is “okay” and “nothing special”.

I am always suspicious of peoples reviews when their profile shows nothing but 5* ratings or 2* reviews.

The problem is, these characters pay to be listed on the find-a-sparky type sites – they don’t expect any criticism. I suspect that you have a legal entitlement to receive a receipt for payment and to any guarantee that you have the right to invoke at a future date. I would be inclined to give Trading Standards a call – they might be able to bring about a satisfactory resolution since this landscape gardener is clearly in need of some guidance on the potential consequences of his conduct.

Your suggestion to rely on word of mouth instead of reviews is absurd. If one is planning to stay in a hotel in a remote part of Greece for example, what are the chances of knowing someone who has stayed in one of the particular hotels in the area? I don’t think you’ve thought this through at all.

You seem to be criticising the internet in general. Being a “newbie” is no excuse for posting irrelevant rants. Your comments are not constructive, reasoned or helpful.

You’ve missed the point; it’s not about my “standards”. This conversation is about bad reviews on Tripadvisor. However, you said in a post above “Sorry but I don’t use Tripadvisor, never heard of it” and you subsequently proceeded to rant about other topics. Please keep your posts on-topic. If you don’t understand the topic, then it’s best to post nothing rather than to misuse the conversation to rant about other topics.

Thanks Patrick. I am not at all discouraged from this very interesting site by anyone. I will avoid going off-track and am sorry for this (e.g. my comments on internet use in general). I did not intend to and will not continue on this topic except to say: if you want to know of a hotel in the middle-of-nowhere then just search “middle-of-nowhere” and up pops a list of hotels which can be contacted direct thus avoiding this problem of being sued for a bad review.That was my main point and I thought it valid although I should have left it at that. Oh, I do not think I was in serious breach of the conditions but did yap too much. As regards personal arguments I hate them as the proper way is good-mannered debate. Matter closed and over from me with no hard fellings towards anyone.

Ed F, thank you for bringing the discussion back on topic. However, I remain puzzled by your latest comment, “if you want to know of a hotel in the middle-of-nowhere then just search “middle-of-nowhere” and up pops a list of hotels which can be contacted direct thus avoiding this problem of being sued for a bad review“. Take the following scenario:

1. Search for hotel in an obscure part of Greece.
2. You find a hotel that meets your requirements, according to its web site, but which has very few or no useful reviews on Tripadvisor.
3. You book and subsequently stay in the hotel. It’s horrible and the hotel’s web site was misleading.
4. You write review on Tripadvisor in order to warn other travellers about the hotel’s shortcomings and misleading web site.
5. The hotel “fines” you for writing a bad review, as explained above.

How does your above approach avoid step 5? Am I missing something?

I don’t think that a Tripadvisor-style service run by Which would be viable. When I look at a hotel on Tripadvisor, most of the reviews are not by UK residents, let alone Which members. Which members alone wouldn’t generate a sufficient number of reviews for the service to be useful, unlike Tripadvisor which enjoys worldwide coverage of hotels and global contributors. If Which sets up a worldwide hotel review system which becomes a global brand name like Tripadvisor, then fine, but if it’s UK-centric, then it’s not worth it.

I don’t see the value in a UK-centric or UK-only review system. As a UK resident with a consequent home here, I have much less need for hotels in the UK than I have in other countries. For a review system to be as useful as Tripadvisor, it needs to be global, both in terms of coverage and contributors.

I was thinking that ‘Which Hotel?’ experts would do the inspections and write the reports just as they do for dishwashers.

With the number of hotels in existence, I don’t think this is viable or cost-effective. And how would tourist from outside the UK know about Which? For a review system to be effective, it has to be global.

Start simple in UK with Which Members for restaurants and hotels. I would be keen to see what other Which folks say. Later, allow non-members to join. Later still, allow places outside the UK to be added. Which can add value and do things that Trip Advisor (TA) does not like giving a statistical confidence figure, clearly if only one person has posted, the confidence will be low. Which could also rate the establishment and give a numeric score. So if all the local restaurants are poor, the number one might have a rating of less than 50%. With TA it has a rating of No 1, indicating wrongly it is good.

Eventually Which could award a white plaque, hugely more valuable than a TA window sticker. The establishment could pay for the plaque.

I have been trying to think of other ways of generating income to fund the project, but can’t as Which does not support advertising, it’s difficult

If at any time its not working. Cancel the whole thing.

There is the possibility of Which? teaming up with its counterparts worldwide to start a joint venture to do such hotel reviews. Even then, I still don’t think this would be feasible due to the fact that there will be so few reviewers for so many hotels. Take “Which? Local” as an example. I drive an Alfa Romeo and would only consider getting it serviced/repaired at an independent Italian car specialist. This type of garage is so specialised that no review exists on Which? Local for any such garage within a reasonable driving distance (i.e. anywhere in London and surrounding counties south of the river). There are instead, many reviews on other sites, simply because there are far more motorists who aren’t Which? members than are.