TripAdvisor To Give Badges To Hotels With Abusive History

TripAdvisor, the travel review website, announced the portal would warn its users regarding the hotels and resorts that have been identified to be unsafe for women. The company will place badges on the pages of these hotels and resorts to identify health, safety and discrimination issues in all of the website’s travel categories.

According to TripAdvisor’s spokesperson, Kevin Carter, these badges are intended to be informative to the users and are not meant as a punishment to the hotels. “These badges will remain on TripAdvisor for up to three months. However, if the issues persist we may extend the duration of the badge,” he added. An employee committee will add or remove the badges, however, TripAdvisor will not take down any business listings from their portal. Carter further said, “We want consumers to see good and bad reviews of businesses.”

The move comes after TripAdvisor faced harsh criticism for deleting a post reporting serious crimes against tourists visiting Mexico. Recently, the company was accused of deleting a 2010 review of Iberostar Paraiso Maya, in which the writer Kristie Love, described being maltreated by a security guard at the Mexican resort. TripAdvisor, later, apologized for deleting the comment and even restored the review saying it was deleted under an older policy that allowed only “family friendly language” on the site.

TripAdvisor claims around 455 million people use their portal, however, the travel review firm also encourages consumers to do additional outside research. Along with Iberostar Paraiso Maya, Grand Velas Riviera Maya and Iberostar Paraiso Lindo have been flagged in the Playa del Carmen region of Mexico. All the three hotels received close to a thousand reviews on the portal and were ranked at the fourth, second and fifth positions respectively.