Hotel Guests Offered Compensation to Remove Negative Reviews

A report by Israel's Channel 13 news program 'HaTzinor' has revealed alleged practices by hotels aimed at manipulating online reviews and ratings on booking sites like Booking.com. The investigation features a recording of a hotel representative seemingly offering compensation to a guest in exchange for removing a negative review.

In the recording, a representative from the Leonardo Club Dead Sea hotel speaks with a guest who posted a critical review after her stay. The representative suggests offering compensation, alongside a request concerning the review and its rating. The guest stated she was willing to edit the review to be more positive and mention the representative favorably, but refused to remove it entirely, emphasizing her desire to warn other families from having a similar experience.

Further testimony from a former employee of a major Israeli hotel chain, who worked in the industry for six years, suggests this is not an isolated incident. The former employee, identified as 'A', stated that staff were instructed to find negative reviews and low ratings, primarily on booking platforms. Representatives would then contact these guests, offering upgrades or compensation. In many cases, the condition for receiving compensation was to delete the negative review or post a positive one instead, influencing the hotel's overall score.

This alleged practice could explain discrepancies between severe guest complaints and the high ratings often displayed on booking websites. When guests are asked to remove negative feedback or replace it with positive comments as a condition for compensation, the resulting picture presented to future customers may not accurately reflect the experiences of all guests. The report advises travelers not to rely solely on booking site ratings, recommending cross-referencing information across multiple platforms, social media, and other review sites to get a more authentic view.

Booking.com responded by stating that the company employs dedicated teams and technological tools to identify and prevent the publication of reviews that do not comply with their content guidelines.