Hotel Brands get behind TripAdvisor While Others Contemplate Lawsuit

While Gadling reports that hundreds of hotels are banding together to sue TripAdvisor over false reviews that lead to lost bookings, two hotel brands are publicly standing behind the behemoth travel review site.

A recent Sydney Morning Herald aricle highlights how Accor and Starwood have embraced TripAdvisor and integrated it into their Web sites and business practices. Accor, for example, links directly to TripAdvisor so visitors to the hotel Web sites can see how previous guests feel about the property. The article states, “When travellers go to an Accor site to look at a hotel’s facilities and prices (Accor brands include Novotel, Sofitel and Mercure), they will be encouraged to click on the TripAdvisor icon to read other travellers’ reviews.”

Starwood actively monitors and responds to reviews on TripAdvisor. Of TripAdvisor’s importance, Alison Boyd, area field marketing manager for Starwood’s Pacific hotels says, “You can’t get much better than that honest, transparent feedback. Is there a better way for a hotel general manager to really understand what a guest thinks?”

Read the full article here and let us know what you think. Is TripAdvisor a necessary evil, a tremendous marketing opportunity or a site that should be shut down for bad business practices?