Now there are an awful lot of different definitions for the “troll” tag, especially when it pertains to how it is used to describe someone online. But generally it’s agreed that a web troll is an awful person that wants to do harm to someone else by ruining their online reputation. In this case, it refers to someone that had a bad experience with a hotel and is now out to ruin their business by spreading their contempt for them where ever they can on the internet.

Here’s the story.

There’s this one troll that visited one of my hotels back in 2001 or so. He didn’t even stay with us, he just ate at one of our restaurants, and apparently the waiter hit on his girlfriend. Since then, he has berated our hotels on both the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree forums and the Trip Advisor Forums. He’ll take a break for a few months and then come back every once in a while.
I just mentioned this guy the other day to a fellow destination expert on Trip Advisor, and she remembered the guy by (user) name. He’s famous for attacking our hotels, and everyone knows it’s because of the problem with this girlfriend.

Yup, these kind of people actually do exist, and they are a virtual nightmare for many hotels trying to make a buck in this day and age. The reason is simple, most of the business hotels do these days is via online reservations, so the online review sites can make or break a hotel with the customer reviews they contain. If a hotel has a bunch of negative client reviews, even if they are false, people will not book a night stay there.

You can see how this might snowball quickly and really impact a motel or hotel, right?

Now, let’s take this guy that was angry about a waiter hitting on his girlfriend and go a step further. If he has posted bogus reviews on several different local search sites and hotel reviews like Trip Advisor (www.tripadvisor.com), Expedia (www.expedia.com), Hotel Guides (www.hotelguides.com), Trav Buddy (www.travbuddy.com), Yelp (www.yelp.com ), or any and all of the hundreds of other review websites out there, he has put a serious dent in that hotel and it’s bottom line. If it’s a chain, he’s doing even more damage. Just one guy, ticked about a bad dinner and a bad waiter that happened to like his lady friend.

Hardcore, right?

But it’s happening right around you. If you are a hotel manager or a hotel PR agent, you know exactly how brutal these solo troll attacks can be. Ultimately, they can devastate and even close down a hotel or motel. That’s right, one person can absolutely destroy a hotel or motel to the point that they have to close their doors.

So what can a hotel owner or manager do? Simple, they can call us to manage or clean their online reputation. If your hotel needs a reactive or proactive online reputation management plan put together, please call us right away at 800-818-6286 and let us show you how we can put together a plan of action that will actually work. You can clean up those nasty online reviews and we can help.