TripAdvisor deleting reviews about sexual assaults in hotels.
“We value your report even though we deleted it.”
TripAdvisor is the Yelp (restaurant reviews by and for the hard of tasting) for those who don’t leave home often.
Eh, Yelp and Trip Advisor are useful: reviews or not, they indicate that stuff exists around you! These sites saved my life a couple times when looking for cheap places to eat at in big cities when I was a broke student.
My boss recently went to Paris, and rented a flat there with this company Property for Rent in Paris - Tranio, but well, it caters to the wealthiest audiences. Maybe I’ll call them in 20 years if things go well for me.
Like VRBO/HomeAway, TripAdvisor is a crowd-sourcing site which has censored genuine but advertiser-adverse customer reviews.
People learned what I learned: VRBO neither protects travelers nor represents property owners, and is merely a glorified web-hosting site.
Among vacation rental companies, Airbnb took the side of its guests when it came to cancellations for bookings made before March 14, directing owners to issue refunds even if they were in the penalty window. (What travelers cheered, some hosts jeered, prompting Airbnb to set up a $250 million fund to partially compensate those affected hosts, some of whom have launched their own direct booking sites).
The vacation rental company VRBO did the opposite, urging homeowners to make 50 percent refunds or allow guests to postpone for up to a year, but ultimately staying out of disputes.
“VRBO is deflecting responsibility and pitting homeowners against renters which I find appalling,” she wrote in an email. “Customers will not forget how they were treated and I will be exclusively using Airbnb going forward. At a bare minimum, a 50 percent mandated refund is fair to both the renter and owner. We did not even receive our cleaning fee back for a property we did not stay in. I understand this is a terrible time for everyone (homeowners included) but VRBO had an opportunity to do the right thing and instead they chose to absolve themselves of all responsibility.”