TripAdvisor is introducing new features that allow users to more easily view safety information, soon after a resort was accused of extortion in a widely-circulated account of a couple’s nightmarish holiday in Bali.
The travel review website announced it was rolling out a filter that allows travellers to more easily surface:
- reviews posted in the past year concerning sexual assaults and sexual misconduct by employees of a business, with reviews about other safety categories added on a rolling basis; and
- all new reviews concerning safety issues including sexual assault, death, drugging, sex trafficking, armed robbery, and physical assault
In addition, a notice now appears at the top of each review that contains safety information to make it easier for travellers to distinguish these from other reviews.
Business owners are encouraged to use TripAdvisor’s management response feature to publicly convey what they have done to address travellers’ concerns.
In the coming months, TripAdvisor says it will be conducting extensive user research to understand what features will provide the most benefit to our global community (e.g. whether a hotel has 24/7 security or the surrounding neighbourhood is walkable at night), and will work with the global tourism industry to highlight safety as a basic human expectation for travellers.
“We understand that traveller needs and safety concerns will continue to evolve, and our platform will, too. We also recognise that we won’t always get it right, but we will continue to ask for feedback from our community and make changes as we go,” Lindsey Nelson, TripAdvisor’s president, core experience wrote in a blog post on the platform.
