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. › Continue reading…