The great Tripadvisor debate

Whenever groups of hoteliers get together for a chat, one subject which is almost sure to come up is Tripadvisor.

For those who aren't familiar with Tripadvisor (and that won't be many of you), it is an international website which allows hotel guests to post reviews of their recent hotel stays, and rate their stay by providing scores for value, location, sleep quality, rooms, cleanliness, service, and overall experience.

Tripadvisor's credentials are pretty impressive. According to their statistics, they get over 60 million unique visitors a month to their website, and receive an astonishing 60 user contributions every minute.  And they say that they are the largest travel website in the world. Tripadvisor has grown rapidly to the point where they are the first port of call for many who are planning a hotel stay.
 
But for hoteliers as a whole, their attitude to Tripadvisor is, let's say, mixed. That's understandable. It can be devastating to receive a negative review, particularly for the smaller hotels for whom their hotel is their life, their living,  and often their home too. But equally, it is tremendously uplifting to receive a positive review.

At Mill End, we are very appreciative of the reviews we receive via Tripadvisor. You can read reviews of Mill End by clicking here

Firstly, the reviews we receive are overwhelmingly positive. We are consistently the second-highest rated hotel in our area - and since the number one slot is occupied by one of the UK's finest hotels, we are just about content with our second place!

Secondly, the reviews we receive consistently highlight not only the delights of our hotel, our rooms, our stunning local environment, but perhaps most importantly the welcome and service provided by our team - and the hotel business is, above all else, about customer service, and the environment created by our team.

And finally, customer feedback is always a gift.  Positive feedback helps us to affirm that we are getting things right - and is very motivational for our hard-working team.  And on those rare occasions where feedback suggests we haven't got things right, we can target improvements for the benefit of future guests.

But we have one request to Tripadvisor.  The current system allows contributors to leave their comments anonymously, and that doesn't feel quite right. We've heard some awful stories about hotels which have received negative comments which, it would seem, are from "guests" who didn't even stay at their hotel.  These comments could be from less-than-scrupulous competitors, or from anyone who happens to have a grudge for whatever reason.  This undermines the hotel trade's relationship with Tripadvisor, provides unrepresentative information for genuine Tripadvisor users, and is entirely fixable if Tripadvisor were to insist that all reviews were submitted on an attributable basis.

But back to Mill End.  We always embrace customer feedback. If something isn't right, please tell us there and then as there is every chance we can fix it for you.  And if we meet or exceed your expectations, which is hopefully most of the time, please share your pleasure with Tripadvisor so that others can share in it too!