TripAdvisor, a popular travel and restaurant review company, is essentially adding a special badge of dishonor next to hotels and resorts where reports of sexual assaults have been made.
The flaggings will also occur for other areas of general concern, like “health, safety, and discrimination issues,” according to The New York Times. An employee committee will decide whether an establishment should have a symbol denoting alleged crimes.
On the top of the page for Iberostar Paraiso Maya, a resort in the Playa del Carmen region of Mexico, for example, there is a message from TripAdvisor written in classic cautionary red.
“TripAdvisor has been made aware of recent media reports or events concerning this property which may not be reflected in reviews found on this listing,” the warning reads. “Accordingly, you may wish to perform additional research for information about this property when making your travel plans.”
The note isn’t specific, but is likely in reference to a number of relatively recent events. Mexican authorities swept through 31 resorts, restaurants and nightclubs in Cancun and Playa Del Carmen in August and confiscated 10,000 gallons of booze believed to be adulterated or contain some sort of unusual toxicity. Iberostar Paraiso Maya, one of the resorts affected by this impoundment, was shut down completely.
Abbey Conner, a 20-year-old woman from Wisconsin, drowned at Iberostar’s Paraiso del Mar while on vacation with her family in January. People close to Conner claim that poisonous alcohol is to blame, but there is no such evidence to prove that.
Furthermore, the move from TripAdvisor comes around a week after The Milwaukee Jorunal Sentinel reported that TripAdvisor, on more than one occasion, deleted a Dallas woman’s review alleging she was raped by a security guard at the Paraiso Maya resort. TripAdvisor apologized and said the repeated removals were due to a policy that only permitted “family-friendly” language and content, according to TheNYT.
Another woman who claims she was the victim of sexual assault at the same exact resort said she also was unable to write a review which was to include the grisly details of the alleged crime. (RELATED: Tesla Accused Of Internal Sexual Harassment. Company Denies Allegations)
“As a preliminary matter, we must emphasize that all incidents reported by guests in our facilities are treated with the utmost seriousness and care in an effort to make certain that all appropriate actions are taken,” a representative for Iberostar Hotels & Resorts told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “Every allegation respecting the welfare of our guests is carefully considered, and we always seek to assist guests who allege that they have encountered problematic situations at any of our facilities … We must emphasize that complaints as described in the media are extremely infrequent at our properties … No tainted or adulterated alcohol has been found at any of the Iberostar properties in Mexico. None.”
TripAdvisor did not respond to TheDCNF’s request for comment by time of publication.
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