Let’s talk about bad reviews. We’ve all seen them: the one-star rants on Yelp or Google, the vague Booking.com complaint about “weird vibes,” or the passive-aggressive note about your breakfast. A single grumpy guest can knock down your score and ruin your mood for days. But should you respond?
In most cases: no. Unless a review includes a serious accusation or a factual error that needs correcting, it’s usually best not to engage. Responding to every complaint can come across as defensive or thin-skinned. More importantly, it keeps you locked in someone else’s version of the story. And often, that story isn’t really about you. It’s about someone’s travel stress, mismatched expectations, or jet lag. You’re just the unlucky target.
But here’s the thing: while individual reviews can be wildly subjective, the overall picture they paint is often… pretty fair. Yes, even on Booking.com. You may not agree with every comment, but look at the general score. Does it reflect how people usually experience your business? Probably. Platforms can be flawed and annoying, but there’s something about the average rating that has a way of landing somewhere close to the truth.
And then there are the patterns. One review complaining about the front desk being cold? Meaningless. But if that same comment pops up again and again – different guests, different stays, different platforms – it’s probably something worth looking at. Not every complaint needs action, but repeated signals shouldn’t be ignored. Operators who dismiss all reviews risk becoming blind to the kind of feedback that actually helps them improve.
Trust into the strengths of the platforms
This is also where credibility comes in. Many hospitality operators have legitimate concerns about these platforms, such as the lack of context or the difficulty of contesting false claims. But if you refuse to acknowledge that the swarm usually gets it more or less right, your critique starts to sound like denial. Ignoring the strengths of review platforms weakens your case when you’re pointing out their flaws.
Because yes, there are flaws. If you’ve ever tried to get a clearly false or vindictive review removed, you know how little recourse there is. Most platforms default to believing the guest, even when the claim is questionable. That’s a problem, especially when serious accusations are involved. Review sites should take their own influence more seriously and be more open to investigating and removing clearly harmful or unverified content. If they continue to refuse to do so, regulators should get involved.
Still, reviews aren’t going anywhere. They’re part of the deal now. So rather than trying to out-argue them, it’s smarter to learn how to read them: to spot the patterns, to hear what the swarm is saying, to separate useful signals from noise. There’s no need to defend your scrambled eggs to every stranger online. But if the overall score says 7.3? That’s probably exactly where you are right now.
Marius Zürcher
About the author:
The co-owner & founder of Millennial & Gen Z marketing and employer branding agency 1520 in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands, Marius Zürcher was a participant at FCSI’s ‘Millennials’ focused roundtable at INTERGASTRA and a speaker at FCSI workshops about industry trends.
