The ANA InterContinental Tokyo doesn’t like that information about a theft that our reader experienced at their hotel back in 2017 is out on the open web for everybody to read.
The area director for IHG ANA Hotels has emailed me at least twice and requested that we take the post down. I have not replied to her emails.
You can access the ANA InterContinental Tokyo website here.
READ MORE: IHG Rewards Rate & Bonus Points Offers
Here’s the latest email from Kamal Haer:
Warm greetings from Tokyo and I hope this finds you well and safe.
I’m following up on an earlier request to see if there is a possibility of removing this story. It was posted four years ago and the whole management team has changed since then. I would appreciate any kind assistance.
Many thanks.
Kamal Haer
Area Director of Sales & Marketing, Greater Tokyo & Okinawa | IHG ANA Hotels Group Japan
C/O ANA InterContinental Tokyo
1-12-33 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-0052 Japan
I was in touch with an IHG spokesperson, who told me that they don’t encourage or request that negative information be removed.
Here’s what happened to the reader in 2017:
Probably the only hotel with three Compensation Clinic-cases:
Compensation Clinic: Case ANA Intercontinental Tokyo Akasaka-Roppongi
Compensation Clinic: ANA InterContinental Tokyo – Multiple Stay Issues During Repeat Visit
Conclusion
We occasionally receive emails from “reputation agencies” that are worded to sound like “threats” about some articles we have published in the past, with a strong suggestion to have them removed.
I have no issue correcting factual mistakes promptly, like last month when we wrongly associated SITA with IATA.
The General Manager of this hotel has undoubtedly changed over the past four years, but it is still an IHG affiliated ANA InterContinental hotel in Tokyo. What else has changed, if anything?
If you think of any significant city hotel that has been in business for a while, surely something terrible or horrendous has taken place there at some point at the property; suicide, murder, overdose, death, etc.
While it may be practice in Japan to attempt to mitigate a “loss of face,” unfortunately, this does not cross over well into editorial circles.
![Airfare of the Day [Business Class] TURKISH AIRLINES Singapore to Munich from $1,114](https://cdn2.loyaltylobby.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/xmunich-g701349f6f_1280-350x250.jpg.pagespeed.ic.cBJCIrNV9k.jpg)
![Airfare of the Day [QSuites] QATAR AIRWAYS Miami to Dubai from $2,151](https://cdn4.loyaltylobby.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/xdubai-gcc4aaa054_1280-120x86.jpg.pagespeed.ic.iTXIT8jU1R.jpg)
![Airfare of the Day [Business Class] ETIHAD London to Cape Town from £1,426](https://cdn2.loyaltylobby.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/xafrica-gdf4db5c29_1280-cape-town-120x86.jpg.pagespeed.ic.2vyvBB95Nf.jpg)
Funny IHG spokeperson:we dont encourage or request negative informations to be removed.
Yet on 2016 when my sister gold chain was stolen at Intercontinental Park lane LONDON ,IHG review refused to post my review several times and i have to go trip advisor to post it and yet after few months trip advisor all of sudden removed all my negative reviews regarding this same hotel even reviews dating from years,i tried to reach out to trip advisor several times even sending them proof that all my stays were genuine and the experiences were true but with no success.
IC park lane and specifically the general manager Alvaro Rey reached out to me to submitt a claim with their insurance which i refused,it wasnt about money but about the hotel employing cheap labour who barely speak english without properly scrutinising their records for guests safety.
TripAdvisor is a scam because they heavily censor reviews even when you have a proof such as bill, receipt, etc. I remember a couple of years ago there was this scandal in Latvia when an ethnic Russian WWII veteran in his 90’s and his family were kicked out a restaurant on V-Day for wearing a Victory Day ribbon (apparently the Latvian owner was a Nazi sympathiser, we’ve got a lot of them here in the Baltics, even in the Government: they are usually advocating Holocaust in Belarus, Ukraine as means of “fighting for Baltics’ independence” as crazy as it sounds). Anyway, the family went on to leave a review describing their legit experience in the restaurant and the discriminatory attitude of its proprietor) with all the supporting evidence, yet TripAdvisor simply removed the review!
I used to use TripAdvisor in the past and I thought it was a reliable source for reviews. After so many scandals that companies were challenging the review and just stopped using…
Do not trust TripAdvisor no matter the site. Their foruns about Africa are something to scare even the bold ones…
The biggest suprise is that you actually had a response from IHG.
I’m torn on this. I have zero sympathy for businesses that try to threaten bloggers to get negative feedback received. But in this case, it’s merely a polite request, it affects what they perceive as and outdated information and they were nice about it.
I stand by the decision to not remove those old posts, but I also don’t think the hotel did anything terrible here and I’m not sure if “punishing” them by publishing this article is the right course of the action.
I could understand one email, but this was a second one. They are not claiming that the theft at the hotel didn’t take place, only to have the information removed.
If you google the hotel and theft, they have one significant bitcoin relating smuggling taking place.
Yeah, but you didn’t say that you replied to their first one, so of course they’re going to send a second one.
sounds like it he negotiating with you…. wink wink…. if they gave you a free stay to see their improvements, i guess you can write about the experience right?
I rather pay for my stays, so I can write whatever I want. Why do you think that most reviews of hotels and airlines are glowing?
Respect
Censorship, especially of the truth, is bad news. But it is a part of cancel culture which even this blog participates in. Of course, I fully support the need to pay one’s bills and I know who pays the piper. I do think only ill will come from it.
LL did what was right. The Hotel should also. Not a lot of that going around these days. Leave it up.
Ignore them! This is nothing short of a censorship attempt. These people have to grow up and quit threatening people who report their mistakes. And thank you for reposting this article! I had read it back in 2017 and now you have refreshed my memory. Keep up your good work!
It raises an interesting question. If a hotel has made significant changes to address prior short comings, they should be applauded for doing so. For example, if they said, we have upgrade our room security systems, hired a new head of security with a strong law enforcement background and have change our all of our safes then great. What they really should be doing, for the folks that search that far back in the review history of a property (I generally look at review from say the past 18 months at most), is post an updated reply to the original review. This will be a lot more helpful than so many of the proforma replies I read from hotel managers in response to a bad review (gee, we are sorry that x did not happen and we look forward to welcoming you back next time for a better experience of our hotel). Leave it up and let the hotel just update their reply and then the consumer can decide. As George Carlson once joked, “somebody, somewhere out there is having an appointment with the world’s worst doctor”…substitute the word “doctor” for hotel room…. Safe travels everyone and tip generously if you can and if warranted. The line workers have been brutalized by Covid…
If it was an accurate reflection of what happened, leave it up. Sharing that kind of information is partly why you’re here.
Carping on (twice) about a 4 year old true account by a victim of hotel theft is a downright stupid act by the Interconti Area boss.
All this has achieved is a refresh of the incident bringing it into even sharper focus.
The fact that the management has ‘changed’ is completely meaningless. We can all identify properties when the gm has ‘changed’ and it is even more badly managed.
An Accor hy-level property on the the N’jing Rd., is just one example. Those in the know will work it out – & agree.
Congratulations and thanks for maintaining your integrity, John. Aside from all the great reports you provide I remain loyal to Loyalty Lobby because you have integrity.
To the degree he is able! I don’t like the censorship, but, I would rather LL survives. I guess that’s sort of winning the war while losing the battles.
I’ve been Platinum member with IHG for 15 years. I traveled a lot during the last year and a half and I noticed more and more that the hotels lack a lot in terms of basic cleaning. Maybe they were disinfecting, but not much else. One time I stayed at HIX in Henderson, NV. I noticed gross failures, especially in the common areas. I brought them up to the hotel’s front desk, but nothing changes during the 5 days I stayed there. So I wrote a review where, in the most gallant manner, I tod my story. To my surprise, IHG got back at me with a message saying they will not publish my review. I was so disappointed. But again, it’s been a long time since IHG impressed me in any way.
Same story as in Henderson happened al HIX in Hillsboro, OR. Again I pointed stuff out to the front desk and nothing got cleaned during a week I was there. Of course, I didn’t bother writing a review ; if I see it, so is everyone else. Eventually people will vote with their wallet.
Self-censorship is a critical weapon of cancel culture; don’t do it. Let them do it. You are responsible for your health and morals. Their morality is between them and their creator, if they accept one.
Same happened to me late last Summer in HI in Ft. Myers. I’m an IHG Ambassador who wrote a generally good review but pointed out the obvious shortcomings regarding mask wearing by staff and a lobby full of lounging guests, none of which were wearing masks. had photos to prove it. The didn’t post my review until I removed the reference to guests not wearing masks.
I’ve gotta agree with @marc_mcvey:disqus here. If this kind of stuff was posted on a review site, it would have fallen way down by now. Their “reputation” would have been restored by improved reviews as a result of their cleaning up their act. These blog posts provide no such context or redemption. If anything, I think you should agree to place a paragraph at the top (under the headline) in red that says that new management has reached out to us and assured us that the conditions that enabled the following scenario to happen are no longer in place. (or something like that). The same thing that all travel blogs do as offers/strategies change. They put a disclaimer at the top of some articles saying that things have changed since this was written, but we leave it here because it still matters. I dunno….there are definitely better ways than basically doxing/humiliating them like you did here. FWIW…..
They have not assured anything else than the “management team” has changed.
If you read my closing paragraph, good luck finding an established hotel where something wouldn’t have taken place over the years.
I agree with @marc_mcvey:disqus. If this property has indeed made significant changes to its security, LoyaltyLobby should keep its readers informed and give Kamal a forum to outline exactly what those changes are. It’s been 4 years so any update (even if the reality is nothing has changed) is appreciated.
How do you propose LL determine that? Hire investigators?
Cutting the people you no longer like out of the photograph doesn’t change the validity of the original. The market will know if they have cleaned up their act, LL has no role in that outside LL’s normal publishing mandate. If you stay there and have a terrific experience, tell us.
Keep the original, no explanation. Trash their messages.
This story told us two things: tripadvisor is nth more than a scam + ihg is simply hopeless!
Platinum IHG is almost useless. It’s like Marriott Gold. No lounge access. Late check out and room upgrade and that’s about it. Especially with the fact that when you redeem points with IHG, often times you still have to pay the service fee and local taxes on the room. This makes using IHG less attractive and they even devalued their points. However, I agree with the other posts. If the hotel contacted you with the changes or improvements they made then you should have an updated post or if the hotel tried their best to resolve the issue or compensate you somehow you should recognize that too.
Do you get points based on the service fee?
Do you get points on the service fee?
I’m Platinum via IHG Ambassador and have never paid a service fee or local taxes when I redeem points. I’ve used 29 reward nights in the past year.