Copyright (c) 2006-2008 Wendy Reid.

Own a hotel/B&B ? beware of travel ‘reviewers’ looking for a freebie

Posted under Business/Internet, Travel by Wendy on May 26th, 2008 6:50 pm

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Yep, we are feeling like right bloody dunces and have been since June last year.  ” Never again ” is what our philosophy is now. We have been well truly taken in.

If you run a hotel/B&B or accommodation of any kind and receive a request along these lines :

” Hello, I am a travel writer for several news publications, i.e Daily Express UK, and am currently researching an article for places to stay in…(your region)… Would you be interested in swapping one night’s free accommodation in your establishment in return for a published review of your property ? “

Sounds fine yeah ? We received such a request in June last year. And, stupidly, we agreed as we thought it would be fun to see ourselves in print in a newspaper even though we didn’t need the publicity.  She was travelling around so I assume she did alright out of other accommodation owners that month. Free holiday - nice work if you can get it.

One year later - after extending to this ‘reviewer’ and her boyfriend nearly £140 worth of goods and services for their one night stay here ( room, food and drink ) - we are still waiting for any sign of that promised mention of our business. We are not expecting to be adorned with a five star rating (far from it), or glowing and gushing words to any effect…just a few words to honour the verbal agreement we had - or at least the reason why the agreement has not been met.

Okay, it was agreed via email…but I wonder if the Daily Express in the UK is aware of this as it was for this publication that this ‘reviewer’ was claiming to be writing the article for; this is where our ‘review’ was supposed to appear…and to date has not. Not that it matters any more as we are selling up and moving on - but I just hate being swindled.

As much as I would like to I will not publish the name of the journalist in question…but follow this link and you will soon discover her identity. She happens to be ‘Mad about Madrid’.

Yep, that’s her alright…

Copyright © 2007-2008 Cultured Views. All rights reserved.

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2 Responses to “Own a hotel/B&B ? beware of travel ‘reviewers’ looking for a freebie”

  1. Roger Bruton, on June 6th, 2008 at 6:35 pm Said:

    Thanks for the warning!! But the link doesn’t work! Go on!!! Let us know her name!!

    Cheers,

    Roger

  2. Wendy, on June 6th, 2008 at 7:09 pm Said:

    Just checked and the link works fine…I’d rather readers discovered for themselves, more fun that way :)

    First sign that all was not right was when the photographer-boyfriend arrived sans camera and said ‘reviewer’ used a tiny notepad ( the kind you buy in a newsagents) and pencil to ‘take notes’…for a newspaper article ??

    What a job. What a lark.

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