Our go to holiday destination review site TripAdvisor, is launching a new feature which will allow reviewers to identify a hotel or resort’s sexual assault history. TripAdvisor are responding to a travel expert’s comment of them needing ‘a wake up call’ as more awareness of this issue is desperately needed.
The site will now add symbols to their hotel and resort reviews which will identify as places of sexual assaults and that may have other major concerns.
Spokesman for TripAdvisor, Kevin Carter, stated that the warnings are put in place to identify health, safety and discrimination issues in all of the website’s travel categories.
'TripAdvisor will keep these badges on their site for up to three months. However, if the issue persists the duration period may be extended,” he said. “They are designed to be informative, not punitive.'
Playa del Carmen in the region of Mexico have three resorts which were flagged up by TripAdvisor. These resorts included the Grand Velas Riviera Maya; ranked number 2 by users, the Iberostar Paraiso Maya; ranked number 4, and the Iberostar Lindo; which was ranked number 5 by users. Each hotel has received thousands of reviews.
A public apology was issued to Kristie Love, 35, of Dallas by TripAdvisor after The Milwaukee Journal Senital reported that the search engine has repeatedly deleted here 2010 forum post about the Paraiso Maya resort. Ms Love went through a very traumatic experience at the resort where she was raped by a security guard. TripAdvisor stated that it ran in conflict with the former policy which only allowed 'family-friendly' language. A consequent guest that stayed at the same resort told The Journal Sentinel that she also tried to write about a sexual assault that took place, but she eventually gave up as TripAdvisor said parts of her review relied on information that wasn’t first-hand.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.