That is not the only hotel. And that hotel had threats made against its refugee guests, which is why they responded with what they responded. The hotel ownership didn't want further public opposition in front of the hotel; it wasn't getting paid enough money to make it worth the hotel ownership's time to risk more bad reviews and public opposition, even as the guests themselves were not the problem except for some being a problem for themselves. Hopefully there are more hotel owners like the head of Nordic Choice hotels who won't be intimidated by xenophobic-driven TA "review" concerns or xenophobic threats/protests.

It's rather interesting that that hotel was willing to publicly share details about its guests and who paid up money for the mentioned guests. Seems the hotel management has rather a lack of respect for the privacy of the guests, refugees or otherwise.

Tripadvisor already reserves its right to forbid reviews which it wants to review and not publish. Reviews, by confirmed guests or fake ones, that make explicit racist or other bigoted slurs in the review are already subject to being forbidden, aren't they?

I don't see anything racist on the SINGLE review that was about that single place you mentioned..

I'm all against racism - but please, don't make up something that isn't, that's not helping your case.

I can't do what I haven't done, so the "don't make up something that isn't, that's not helping your case" seems to be misdirected advice, as I've not made anything up about what has transpired with TA reviews, made up by non-guests or guests.

Earlier this week my company booked a hotel for me in Turkey. Same Hilton hotel I always stay at so I had absolutely no activity whatsoever on TA, reviewing properties, restaurants, or anything for that city.

Yet, one day after my company booked it, I got one of those automated emails from TA with the title "Your hotel in _______". Same hotel my company booked.

So, my question - how did TA harvest that information?

They most likely received it from the hotel.

Is that standard practice? Seems like a bit of a privacy issue if that's the case. Maybe I ticked a box in my Hilton profile allowing them to share my information

I don't know if it's standard practice, however, lately I have noticed that some properties where I have stayed have sent me emails encouraging me to post reviews on TripAdvisor. I suspect, but have no proof, that TripAdvisor offers hotels various bookings and confirmation tools.

Take a look at this TripAdvisor FAQ: TripConnect Instant Booking

I have found TripAdvisor useful for their offline smartphone city guides when going abroad.

I've been a user (and reviewer) on TripAdvisor since almost their inception. I have generally been positive about the service, and have always been a heavy user.

As some have pointed out here already, many of the reviews seem to be "crusades" by angry guests - not exactly a balanced review. On the other hand, I've found by reading a handful of the reviews (and checking the status of the reviewers), one can get an accurate picture of the property.

However I'm now of the opinion that the corporations/property owners are now "in control" of the process, and TripAdvisor reviews are being increasingly corrupted by insiders.

I recently had occasion to be in a Cairns, Queensland Australia hotel during a lunchtime meeting of the local tourism authority. I stuck my head into the meeting and was treated to a presentation by the tourism leadership on how to "get organized" and have each other property owner write glowing reviews on the region's hotels and restaurants.

Likewise, I recently wrote a review of an absolutely horrible Radisson Hotel experience in Bridgetown, Barbados. Among other things this 8 story hotel was operating with ALL the elevators out-of-service during a major remodeling that was never disclosed to the guests booking this hotel.

I attempted to lodge a review about this situation. It was rejected everytime I sent it in. I've been doing this a long while now with over 150 hotel reviews, and am cognizant on the way these reviews are to be submitted. This one never could make it through, and I was finally told "it is too harsh". Huh?

Meanwhile, the same hotel has reviews posted marked "Review collected in partnership with Radisson Hotels". I've attached one of the reviews. It is (like many of them) a couple sentences and then filled with apparently computer generated gibberish. Obviously some kind of compromised TripAdvisor system that allows the hotel to submit their own obviously fraudulent reviews.

I've noticed many experienced business travelers withdrawing from their reviewing of properties. TripAdvisor is now being run by the toadies.

yes I noticed something similar too. I'm a top reviewer there and was always able to send my unedited reviews. However, I then wrote a negative but very fair (and nothing exaggerating, name-calling, etc) review of a hotel in Cambodia. For the first time ever, it said my review was under review - and then a few days later came back with very weird excuses. One time it said I was accusing people of lying - huh?

The hotel had almost all 5-star reviews, and I stayed there as well as another high reviewed hotel in the same city. The one was clearly less nice of a hotel and that's the one I wrote the negative review about (actually I think it was a 2 or 3-star) - clearly the reviews are biased and getting people to stay at a less-than-par hotel.

I think on my 3rd or 4th submission it was finally accepted (I insisted in getting my review in there). I took out anything that was even moderately negative and tried to reword things so that readers could read between the lines that it was worse.

This convinced me that clearly some hotels have a relationship with TA but I don't know the details. Either they pay them to excessively scrutinize any negative review, or they let them control their own reviews / etc.

This is very disappointing - I've contributed and relied on TA for several years, and now I have to doubt what's real on there.

This is why the traveller photos are so important. To me the standard of the bathroom is the by far most important thing so any photos showing that are invaluable.

+1 the quality of the bathroom is usually reflective of the quality of the hotel in general. Like a good steak - more marbling = better.

I love seeing travelers' photos! They are the best part of TA (other than the data collection aspect).

Generally speaking, when reading reviews, I focus on the reviews by veteran reviewers. If I see a glowing review from someone or "something" that has 1 or 2 posts, I immediately dismiss.

That's how I view it also. I also look at the other things reviewed by low count reviewers to see what their other reviews have been like.