Wish I could say I'm surprised. But regular readers know that I'm not.
Sadly, not at all surprised that a small hotel group in Ireland would appear to have been caught red-handed conspiring to write fake reviews. Reviews meant to bury a slew of bad reviews.
No, it's not that I know the hotel group in question. I don't.
But I have seen this game before, all too often. It's a problem that goes far beyond a few bad apples.
Sure, now they're saying it was all one big misunderstanding. But the thing is, it always is. A big misunderstanding.
The correct understanding being, of course, that travelers who are reading reviews on an online review site that promotes itself as a purveyor of real reviews by real travelers are actually from real travelers. Real travelers who are not investors in the inn, not family members of the inn owner, not other innkeepers with whom ethically challenged innkeepers trade reviews for fun and profit.
Okay, so TA no longer claim they're trustworthy reviews. Because, you know, they're not.
But by the same token, how can they claim that they're even real or honest reviews? How can they say who wrote them or what interest they may have?
There are just too many instances of reviews written exactly as the internal memo exposed in the Irish Times sets forth. By employees - or managers or investors or friends and family members of the owner - pretending that they're just ordinary paying guests. When they're not.
I know, I know. It's tough out there. Folks slam inns for all the wrong reasons. One bad review can have severe and lasting impact, especially for a small inn. Trust me, I understand all too well the damage that can be done by malicious folks determined to cause harm. I know it hurts.
But my refrain is the same as it's always been. When you post fake reviews or allow others to fake post reviews on your behalf, you're part of the problem now. Because you are now enticing guests to stay at your property based on a fraudulent assertion.
Sorry but that is just not cool by any standard.
Guests put a great deal of trust in innkeepers who are expected to respect their right to privacy, their right to a quiet night's sleep in a clean room with a comfy bed, their right to safety, their right to get what they've been told they're going to get. That trust is something I take seriously as should any innkeeper. It's a trust that is fundamentally broken when innkeepers post fake reviews.
I have no idea how many of the reviews on TA are really fake. But the thing is, I don't think TA does either, whatever they claim to the contrary.
I know that I see obviously fake reviews almost every time I take a close look. I know that I see patterns that are hard to ignore, unless that ignorance is willful. And it's that willful ignorance that is so damning.
So call me unsurprised by a regulatory order in the UK that TA must refrain from advertising that their reviews are from "real travellers, or were honest, real or trusted."
Because, you know, too many times they're just not.
