Delfino Blu.................

[loftyscot]

Nice one Jim, the famous Caledonian Hotel in Edinburgh has a mighty 500 reviews, not bad for a city that attracts millions of tourists p.a.

[Jimbo]

Hi Diane,

It's important for us to be objective and clinical about this. The issue is not really about DB but TripAdvisor pulling adverse criticism without feedback on reasons.

Noise will be made (or not) when we have answers.

[Jimbo]

Hi David - You work with numbers. What's your view of the DB review count?

[dibully]

I agree Jim I have never had a review not posted by TA good or bad and have done a couple of really critical ones but was honest and they were posted a couple of times with a comment from the hotel which was fair enough saying they had changed a couple of the things I had mentioned

[Rob.tc]

It's not just the incredibly high number of excellent reviews the DB receives, it is also the total lack of average and poor reviews, both 0, it has received.
Even the very best hotels have a small proportion of average and poor reviews, but not the DB - strange that they don't.

[loftyscot]

It does look a bit of an outlier.

If you take all the people who visit San Stef as the population and assume (reasonably) that as a population it would have the same propensity to respond as any other resort population then you can draw a couple of conclusions;
a) the DB is fantastic and overwhelms/encourages its visitors so much they feel compelled to post on TA
b) there may be an unreliability element in the results.

My friend rents a villa in Florida and takes TripAdvisor bookings. He was telling me that when he accepts a booking via TA he does not receive a penny until the guest arrives at the villa, whereas with bookings through other channels he will receive the deposit and the balance at the time the customer pays it. So, if you think about, as a hotelier this wouldn't encourage you use TA given the impact on your cashflow - hence he will only take a TA booking if he needs to fill that week/fortnight etc, ie if he doesn't have a choice.

TA's cash flow will come from its click rate and given the miniscule impact DB and SS users will have on its volume I can't help but think the DB proprietor won't have much of an influence in the grand scheme of TA's fortunes, but if he has found out a way to protect his business and his family then fair play to him. TA would argue that on balance its ratings on DB are 'broadly' accurate :-)

See article from Forbes

http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2013/05/06/these-drivers-will-help-fuel-tripadvisors-user-base-growth/

[Silverstar]

Nope still no resent email from TA and they refuse to give me the reasoning over the phone saying they can only see the date they sent the email and not the content......!

If you think that the Nafsika has been open for nearly 25 years longer than DB and the disportionate amount of reviews, there is definitely something not quite right about TA.

As others have said - even the best hotels in the world have a smatterings of poor/average reviews yet DB has 2 I think and Kostas replied personally to both on TA.

There is something very odd about all of this. I will tell Speros at Nafsika and see what his view is.

[Rover]

I understand that TA "reserve the right to remove a post for any reason". I can only conclude that Silverstar's post was considered to have breached guidelines. Influence from DB? I really can't see how, but the review ratio per visitor is certainly strange. Can such a small Hotel in a small resort exert enough pressure to have a TA review removed?

[Jimbo]

It has been known for advertisers to pull their advertising if the paper publishes adverse copy. TA is making a lot of money out of adverts.

Interesting points in this wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TripAdvisor

Read the "Criticism and Legal Actions" section; TA UK were slapped on the wrist by the Advertising Standards Authority, basically because it was easy to post fake favourable reviews.

A useful point here is that owners are notified when a review is posted. Why would an American company bother to pull a small review of a night out at a small hotel on Corfu without some prodding? I don't think silverstar's review breached any guidelines, and if it did, she should be told.

As a (retired) BBC journalist I smell a tiny stink of fish here. As of now I have not, and assume Gavin has not, had a reply from TA to our queries. I am logging it carefully. We will try again, then log it, and then I will, if necessary, talk to people I know.

In the great scheme of things it's obviously not a major issue - but people do rely upon reviews to make a judgement. If honesty is devalued we all suffer.   

[loftyscot]

i visited 4 or 5 times just for dinner and was treated very well

It may well be that DB and TA read this forum thread (and have read the quote inserted) and thought that one bad visit out of 5/6 is unfortunate. Just a thought, but..........and maybe, just maybe, TA and DB think the review compared to the 5 or 6 reviews (posted?) following the 'treated very well' visits was perhaps on balance, a tad unfair.

Good luck with the investigation.

Devils Advocate :-)

[Rover]

"Unfair" or realistic? Reviews are subjective. If owners can have them removed, what is the use of TA? Clearly there are people who adore DB. I suspect that the truth is that if you stay there it is good, but if you merely visit (if allowed in!) it can be unpleasant.

[Sellsy]

Very interesting thread this, we use trip advisor for just about everything we do travel wise, it's concerning to think all may not be as transparent as we believed. Hope you get some clarity Silverstar, your review was balanced and not over the top. As ever a response could be made / expected from the managers to show two sides so to speak, a removal helps no one .
Hope this is not too far left field, in August last year I started a thread in yammas bar titled Trip advisor - The good,the bad and the ugly. I reflected on the value of T A to travellers after reading on TA's Romanza site what I considered to be a slanderous claim from a poster regarding an accusation of theft from staff at the Romanza ( titled cash nagging 2012) This awful post is still there on T A. It does throw into question the criteria for allowable postings / removal criteria etc? Secondly however my thread on this site seems to have disappeared? Unless I am doing something wrong in the search. I have records of it in my own post records. I mention this because I felt it would support and compliment Silverstars quest, quite a few posted on the issue, not being able to find it at the mo has added to my slight paranoia  re Trip Advisor!

[Sellsy]

Re my previous post found the trip advisor thread it was active earlier this year in Yammas! Paranoia over! This thread may add something to Silverstars if we compare the post made against the Romanza which still stands for all to see!

[Rover]

Well Sellsy, your post reminded me of the "Romanza Affair", and although I do not rely on TA, I have looked at some reviews, and revised my opinions. There are some very critical reviews, owners being described as "Thugs", staff accused of stealing etc. I am not going to do any more research, others are better placed to do this, but given the level of critical reviews which remain on TA, I can only conclude that the review in question has been removed because of pressure from somewhere. I can no longer believe that the review breached guidelines, having read some of the vitriol on the TA site. I guess we have all learned something? Take it all with a pinch of salt? If something looks too good to be true, it probably isn't?

[loftyscot]

I see the fight back has started on TA