A hotel chain with properties in Santo Domingo and on the country's east coast suffered a reputational crisis when a guest posted a video on social media accusing the hotel of negligence in a safety incident during their stay. The video went viral within hours, and in less than three days the chain had racked up dozens of coordinated negative reviews on TripAdvisor and Google, many from users who had never stayed at the property.
The impact was immediate: two international tour operators temporarily stopped selling packages with the chain while they waited for an official response, and the cancellation rate for the following weeks rose noticeably. Management needed to respond with verifiable data without downplaying the original guest's experience, so as to avoid a second wave of criticism.
Our team deployed a review management and crisis communication protocol: we audited the unverified fraudulent reviews and reported them to the platforms, coordinated with hotel management a transparent and verifiable public response about the corrective measures taken, and worked with the original guest to resolve their case directly. In parallel, we implemented a strategy to generate genuine reviews from satisfied recent guests to rebalance the average rating.
Within 60 days, the TripAdvisor rating had returned to its pre-crisis level, the fraudulent reviews had been removed from the platforms and both tour operators had resumed selling packages with the chain, which closed the quarter with higher occupancy than the previous year.
60 daysTo recovery of the previous rating
48Fraudulent reviews removed from the platforms
2Tour operators that resumed sales
