TripAdvisor

Shameless

TripAdvisor has millions of consumer reviews on its website and is regarded as an increasingly powerful marketing tool by hotels. But its refusal to screen out collusive and malicious reviews is brazen. When a hotelier complained that a critical comment was planted by a competitor, he received this brush off from TripAdvisor: “Since reviews are posted by our members on our open forum, and we do not verify the information posted in them, we are unable to provide you with proof that this member reserved, stayed, or actually visited [your] hotel.”

This reply has the virtue of honesty, but it is shameless. TripAdvisor has dropped its slogan: “Get the truth and Go”, , but it continues to claim that it provides: "real hotel reviews you can trust”. It says that it uses a sophisticated algorithm to sort out the bogus from the genuine, and that hotels are penalised if they try to manipulate their ranking. But it is all too easy to evade these controls. I posted a bogus, over-the-top glowing review of a truly terrible hotel using a false name and a false email address. It was put up on TripAdvisor's website within hours. Investigations by the Sunday Times and the Times have come to a similar conclusion. The website is wide open to abuse. In its defence, TripAdvisor says that its users read reviews with “the right level of scepticism”. They need to. The sad truth is that millions of consumers are being gulled.

A group of British hoteliers is now considering taking legal action for defamation against TripAdvisor. A legal action would be fraught and expensive, but the website is undoubtedly vulnerable, as it has no idea who its contributors are and makes no attempt to find out. It would therefore not be able to put forward a defence of justification. The hoteliers are also mounting a campaign to force the website, owned by the travel company Expedia, to publish the names of its reviewers. Ending anonymity would stop much of the malicious and collusive reviewing that is going on. But TripAdvisor should also check whether the names and email addresses of its reviewers are genuine. Until it takes these elementary precautions, anyone using its website should beware.

Adam Raphael

Special offers

Green days

There is nothing like a special offer to encourage us all to become green. The Old Vicarage at Dolfor, a Victorian vicarage, high in the hills of the Welsh marshes, is offering guests who arrive by rail, bus, bicycle or foot a 30% reduction on their standard room rate. Tim and Helen Withers,  the owners, combine ‘consummate professionalism with friendliness and informality’.

The Lovat at Fort Augustus, on the shores of Loch Ness, also gives a discount to visitors arriving by public transport, cycle, or walking. Caroline Gregory’s eco-friendly former railway hotel is a fine place for an Autumn break. A biomass woodchip burner provides heating and hot water; eco-friendly cleaning products are used, so are energy-saving lamps.

Strattons at Swaffham, a Grade 11 listed Palladian style-villa,  has been a pioneer in raising environmental and recycling standards  since its owners Vanessa and Les Scott took over in 1990. A discount of 10% on its B&B rate is given to all those arriving by public transport.

Augill Castle, near Kirkby Stephen, gives a 25% discount on its B&B rate for a single night (subject to availability) to readers who book using the Guide’s discount vouchers. This Victorian fantasy-Gothic castle has modern energy saving equipment, the heating stoves use fuel from local woods and compressed sawdust bricks. The owners, Simon and Wendy Bennett, say they will gladly ferry guests to and from the nearest public transport.

More special offers below, and there are many more are on our Special Offers page.

Hotels, inns and B&Bs with a special offer (click and see)

Send in a Review

Win a free night!

Another great prize is on offer this month, a free night, dinner and breakfast for two at Morston Hall, on the North Norfolk coast, which won one of our César awards this year. It is renowned for the cooking of Galton Blackiston. All you have to do is to submit a review which catches the eye of our editorial team for its wit and insight. Readers' reports are the lifeblood of the Guide. The prize includes any date apart from Friday or Saturday nights or on bank holidays. The winners of last month's competition, a free night, dinner and breakfast at the Rose and Crown, Romaldkirk, is Lynn Wildgoose.

Hotel Tales

Basil Fawlty

# 'On the first night we booked our evening meal for 8pm. Our order was taken at 7.45pm – we then waited, and waited. Our starter eventually arrived at 9.35pm, our main course at 10.05pm and our desert at 10.35pm. It was past 11pm before we left the restaurant! On entering the lounge following the meal it was obvious that the other diners had had the same experience. We spoke to the restaurant manager who stated that such delays were normal for the fine-dining menu. On returning home we wrote to the director of the hotel and received a condescending and dismissive reply which included the statement “this may not be the hotel for you”. Well he is certainly right about that.'

# 'This hotel has a fabulous position, but there was a distinct whiff of the boarding house about it. It was crying out for a spring clean: dead flies and unswept floors in one of the sitting areas, unhoovered carpets and cooking smells in the corridors. Who, one wonders, advised the hotel to attach TV sets to the thin bedroom walls? The noise from next door’s came straight through our bed head. We were lucky that it was turned off at 11pm. The food was patchy, sometimes good, never superb; lovely local fish ruined by overcooking, and served on over-heated plates.'

# 'We would have been happy to pay twice the price not to stay there. You had to cross the passage to use the bathroom or loo. The bathroom was dirty, the wash basin insanitary. The bed could be described as ‘well used’, but this would not be enough to explain how horrid it was. No real welcome from the lady of the household and the husband delighted in not even saying ‘Good morning’. Breakfast was Tesco value: slight mould on the toast.'

BUY tHE gUIDE

The new 2011 Guide

The 2011 edition of the Good Hotel Guide to Great Britain and Ireland will be published on October 18th. It is the best edition we have ever produced, thanks to a new design and full colour photos of all our selected full list hotels. Discount vouchers worth a total of £150 are included with each copy. They enable a 25% saving off the normal B&B price at participating hotels. A copy of the Guide costs £17.50 (including £2.50 p&p), compared to a retail price of £20. If you would like to reserve an advance priority copy, please click here or write to: The Good Hotel Guide, 50 Addison Avenue, London W11 4QP.

The GHG Iphone app is also now available from Apple's Itune store. It costs £2.99 in the UK, $4.99 in the USA.

The Good Hotel Guide, founded 32 years ago, is totally independent. It receives no payments, no hospitality and no advertising from hotels selected for an entry in the printed edition. Hotels pay to be on the GHG website, but only those hotels which have an entry in the printed Guide are eligible. Selected hotels are recommended by readers, backed where necessary by an anonymous inspection. The British edition of the Guide is published each autumn. Adam and Caroline Raphael, who edit the Guide, are award-winning journalists. Caroline, a former BBC researcher and a travel writer, is editor-in-chief. She has worked on the Guide for more than 30 years. Adam, who previously worked for the Guardian, the Observer, the BBC and the Economist, is the Guide's marketing director. Desmond Balmer, formerly travel editor of the Observer, is editor of the British guide. The Guide specialises in small owner-managed hotels, inns and B&Bs in England, Scotland, Wales, the Channel Islands and Ireland. It includes budget B&Bs, good value hotels as well as grand country houses and chic city hotels, all offering value for money in their price.range.