A hotel manager at a Dublin property has launched a scathing attack on guests who he believes were threatening to post negative reviews in response to minor problems.

Paul Stenson from Charleville Lodge Hotel Dublin posted an open letter on the hotel’s Facebook page yesterday, aimed at some German guests who were in residence at the time.

In it, he explained how they had complained about dust on a lampshade and a headboard which wasn’t entirely horizontal.

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While he accepted these issues, he said that after they were rectified, the guests continued to find more faults, taking photographic evidence to reception and insisting staff “do something about it”.

In his post, he continued:

For the most part, I like working in hospitality. As with any job or industry, days can be both good and bad. However, of late there appears to be a very dark trend emerging in the wonderful world of hospitality. There is a small cohort of travellers who use travel review sites as a means of 'travelling economically'. Essentially what they do is they take photos of some minor issue relating to the hotel room, and use photo editing software (namely the zoom function) to make the issue look ten times worse than it actually is. They then show this image to the hotel reception, and advise the receptionist that this image, along with some scathing words, will appear on the internet in a number of days, if ‘something is not done’ about the issue. When they say, ‘something is not done’, they usually mean a substantial discount on the room rate, or no charge for their room at all. Now, some would call this a threat, and as much as I’d like to find another, more pleasant word to describe this, I can’t. So for now, let’s call it a Travel Review Threat (TRT).

Some hotels fall into the trap of the TRT and, given the ammunition sitting in the chamber of the guest’s smartphone, management let them walk out without paying a cent for their room. In Charleville Lodge however, this is not the case. I am afraid we don’t tolerate this behaviour for one minute. As you know, we do our very best to rectify any complaints immediately and, should this ‘not be enough’ for the guest, and should they issue us with a TRT, we will respond with threats of equal (and usually greater) proportion. If there is any material posted online by a guest that constitutes slander or could be described as defamatory, we will have no hesitation in taking legal action against this guest. Travel review sites are unassailable as they have terms and conditions that are so complex that it would be easier to understand a document written in some obscure dialect of Swahili, but in any case we firmly believe that it is the person who took the photos, and wrote the words, that should be tackled, sued for damages and made pay associated legal costs.

Most responses to the Facebook post have been positive, with many users praising Stenson for his robust response to the ‘threat’.

 

For alternative ways on dealing with online reviews, make sure you check out these five tips from Iconsulthotels founder Martin Kubler.