Trip reports, holiday reviews – and don’t be nasty.
The aim of trip reports and holiday reviews has got lost somewhere in the general public’s love for making their own voice heard over the internet, frequently regardless of the consequences. The whole point of the system of reporting and reviewing was so that we could let each other know when a place was remarkably good or remarkably bad. That seems to have been forgotten.
Golden Rules:
– Never write a bad review just because you didn’t happen to like the place
– Your bad review should be written ONLY if you feel that the public in general needs to be warned, i.e there were mice in the restaurant, there was a stink of septic tanks, there was a dangerous dog in the grounds
– Your report, therefore, should not be bad simply because the very week YOU stayed there was a problem with the (e.g) electricity. The owner of the property was probably going mad trying to fix it and it will probably never be a problem again. You therefore do not need to warn the public about it.
– Your report should not be bad if the situation was something out of the owner’s control, e.g noisy mopeds all night. By all means tell the owner that you found this annoying, but to risk his business over something he can do nothing about, is unfair
– When reading reports, totally ignore any that smack of vengeance, bitchiness, sour grapes
– Totally ignore reports that indicate the personal preferences of the writer
– Bear in mind, as you read, that just because this review says such-and-such, it does not mean it is or is not true
– As you read, look for a clear, unbiased point of view
Lastly, do bear in mind:
– A programme recently done on UK television showed that most bad-report-writers (some seem to make a hobby out of it!) suffer from some kind of inadequacy problem
– Black lists do exist
– The owner of the property also has access to the internet – be careful !
Catherine Broughton is a novelist, a poet and an artist. She is widely travelled and writes regularly for magazines and blog sites. Her sketches are on her web site http://turquoisemoon.co.uk . Her books are available from Amazon and on Kindle, or can be ordered from several leading book stores.
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Catherine Broughton is a novelist, a poet and an artist. Her books are available as e-books on this site:-
https://payhip.com/b/tEva “A Call from France”
https://payhip.com/b/OTiQ “French Sand”
https://payhip.com/b/BLkF ”The Man with Green Fingers”
https://payhip.com/b/1Ghq “Saying Nothing”
They are also available on Amazon & Kindle, or can be ordered as paperbacks from most leading book stores and libraries.
