TripAdvisor is still promoting hotels after learning of sexual assault allegations, report finds

TripAdvisor is promoting hotels and other businesses that are at the centre of rape and sexual assault allegations, even after users notify them of alleged attacks by staff members, a Guardian report finds.

The travel site — which is the largest in the world and has 490 million visitors monthly — is facing criticism over poor handling of complaints from women who say they have been raped or assaulted by staff members at businesses promoted on TripAdvisor.

An anonymous woman told The Guardian that when she reported being raped by a tour guide operating out of a hotel to TripAdvisor – after first reporting the incident to police and the hotel in question – TripAdvisor told her to leave a review on the hotel’s page detailing the assault. 

In emails seen by The Guardian, TripAdvisor sent the woman a list of links to other such reviews on the platform detailing sexual assault to provide a template for how she could write her review. They further suggested that the woman could write the review from a fake profile if she preferred. 

“I was in disbelief. Am I seriously being asked to recall the humiliating details of my own sexual assault,” the woman, who goes by the name K, told The Guardian. “Was this global company pushing me to relive my trauma on their forum for everyone to see and comment, or worst of all for the perpetrator who is still out there, to respond to me, troll me?”  

TripAdvisor told The Guardian that it considered such reviews to be “very helpful” to help inform other users about the safety of a hotel or businesses. The Guardian found more than 40 reviews detailing sexual assault on different TripAdvisor business pages, many of them with a high rating. 

Another woman who had a similar experience with TripAdvisor after notifying them that she was raped in a hotel in the Caribbean, says that TripAdvisor is failing to protect women when they don’t have a better system in place to deal with this types complaints. 

“Am I seriously being asked to recall the humiliating details of my own sexual assault”

“TripAdvisor has a major platform and really they have a duty for public safety, because it is a big problem,” the woman, Christine, told The Guardian. “Many women contacted me and said this has happened to them too, by a different staff member at another hotel. And we need to be aware of it.”

Per The Guardian, TripAdvisor has previously taken steps to better deal with complaints of sexual assault committed by staff of promoted businesses by adding warning tags. When a page is flagged, users will be warned that “health, discrimination and safety” issues have been reported at the business, without specifying what the issues are. 

Rossalyn Warren, the journalist who reported the story for The Guardian told Mashable that the two women’s stories bring to light “some of the real challenges TripAdvisor faces when it comes to review processes, and its duty of care to victims of sexual violence.”

“I trust as a company they want to take steps to better improve their current system, so reviews detailing sexual assault or any other crime committed by staff are made known, and are more visible, to potential tourists browsing the business pages,” Warren said.  

Mashable has reached out to TripAdvisor for comment and will update this piece when they respond.