TripAdvisor is marking hotels where sexual assault has been reported
Hotel review site TripAdvisor is posting a notification on listings where sexual assault has been reported.
According to the company, this 'badge' notification was created to alert consumers of health, safety or discrimination issues at businesses reviewed on its site. Company spokesperson Kevin Carter told the New York Times that badges will remain on the site for up to three months, but could stay longer if issues persist. Decisions to add or remove a badge will be made by an employee committee, he added.
TripAdvisor will look at media reports as well as “other credible sources of information” when determining whether or not a business should receive a notification on its listing.
Three resorts in the city of Playa del Carmen in Mexico currently have the notification on their listing.
The implementation of the notification system comes just days after the The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that TripAdvisor repeatedly removed a post from Kristie Love seven years ago after she wrote that she’d been raped by a security guard at a highly rated all-inclusive Mexican resort. The company said that it removed the post because it violated Trip Advisor’s “family friendly” guidelines.
TripAdvisor responded to the article by apologizing to Love and stating that “at the time, we had a policy whereby we judged content to be in breach of our guidelines if it did not adhere to family-friendly language.” The company has since updated its policy to allow for “more descriptive reviews on the site about first-hand accounts of serious incidents like rape or assault.”