Those days are long gone when TripAdvisor could be considered neutral third party when it came to travel related online reviews. It is still difficult tool to pass, however, when doing research about hotels in many locations.
I don’t usually pay too much attention to TripAdvisor reviews. I sometimes glance them to check what hotels certain destinations have and their relative TripAdvisor rankings.
Many business have complained that some of the reviews are left by their competitors or patrons that have never stayed or consumed any of their services (basically fake reviews). Then there are services that sell positive reviews to make these business to look better than they are.
Then there are reputation management companies that try to dispute feedback left on various platform to make then basically go away. They don’t care whether the feedback is true or not. This happened to me this past week with review that I left for my stay at the W Doha.
Here’s email that TripAdvisor sent me:
Here’s the review that I had left (three stars):
I deleted some and resubmitted it (deducted one star in the process) and it was posted:
And surprise surprise! Another email from TripAdvisor!
Conclusion
Seem that someone working for Starwood properties in Doha is buying services from “reputation management” company. I don’t believe that the Sheraton Doha ranking at the number 3 is real either.
This only backfires because guests don’t have right expectations. It would be better that they would learn about the issues that other guest have had at the property so that the would know what to expect.
And guess in which hotel I am supposed to stay tomorrow night in Doha on yet another Best Rate Guarantee claim?
