Starwood Hotels to publish online customer reviews
http://travel.usatoday.com/hotels/post/2011/10/starwood-launch-own-reviews-ratings-rival-to-tripadvisor/556220/1
Starwood later today will launch a first-ever online review function - a first-ever move by a U.S. global hotel company that gives its customers a high-profile voice and potential influence with other guests.
The new function will let Sheraton, Westin, W and other Starwood-brand hotel customers write their assessment of their recent hotel stay directly on Starwood websites, senior Starwood executive Chris Holdren tells Hotel Check-In.
Some hostels have been posting reviews on their own websites for a while, but this is the first major hotel chain to do it.
Do you think that this will have an effect on review sites like Tripadvisor?
13 years
Do you think that this will have an effect on review sites like Tripadvisor?
Not unless the reviews are believed by the public to be unbiased. The problem with reviews on any retailers own site is that there is always the suspicion that they will weed out bad reviews. Obviously this isn't always the case - sites such as Amazon have a reasonable reputation I believe. But then again they are usually selling someone else's product, not their own.
13 years
When I first set up our website I added a "guestbook" type feature and have since only had a few people write on it, compared to the 16 reviews we now have on TA. It does get some spam which is a problem. If we got a negative review on our own site, for sure I would consider removing it -- who wouldn't?
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