New York Hotel Threatens to Charge Guests $500 for Negative Yelp Reviews

The typical negative online review can cost the enterprise being criticized as many as 30 potential customers.

OK, the service may have sucked, but given the potential financial impact, you can understand why enterprises are a little sensitive about negative publicity, especially when some of it seems gratuitous.

But then there's the Union Street Guest House, a renovated upscale hostelry in Hudson, New York, an old river town whose heyday was probably during the mid-1800s following the completion of the Erie Canal but which is experiencing something of a renaissance as a weekend get-a-way for hip New Yorkers who dwell in large numbers about an hour to the south.

The Union has announced that it will charge guests $500 if they write negative reviews about it. This is presumably intended to discourage anything less than fulsome praise and it is, no doubt, less expensive than investing in customer service improvements that would enhance the guest experience.

However, it seems to have had the opposite effect from what was intended, unless the goal was to force a change in management.

The larger issue it raises is the role of reviews in contemporary organizational performance assessment. There is considerable evidence available that positive reviews can be purchased from 'click farms' in developing nations. There is also data to support the contention that negative reviews can be financially devastating.

Enterprises must learn to manage the publicity they receive online, however extremely unfair or profoundly undeserved - either positive or negative. And they must do so without offending those who now consider it their right to render such judgments without heed of their effect. This has implications for free speech especially given the immoderate tone that digital reviews frequently take. While one may chuckle at The Union Street Guest House's reaction, one could imagine commercial interests banding together to demand business hate speech legislation to protect themselves. Given the growing interest in the value of intangibles like brand and reputation, far stranger things could happen. JL

Caroline Moss reports in Business Insider:

The hotel agrees to give you back your money if the negative review is taken offline.

Weddings cost a ton of money, and one hotel has found a way to collect even more cash. The New York Post reports that the Union Street Guest House in Hudson, New York, fines couples $500 for every negative review posted online (on any website) by one of their guests.
But it doesn't end there. The hotel will also fine you $500 if you're staying there to attend a wedding at another venue in the area, but leave a negative review about your stay.

Union Street Guest House

The hotel, which the Post reports is an estate built by the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers, has this policy on its website:

Please know that despite the fact that wedding couples love Hudson and our inn, your friends and families may not.

If you have booked the Inn for a wedding or other type of event anywhere in the region and given us a deposit of any kind for guests to stay at USGH there will be a $500 fine that will be deducted from your deposit for every negative review of USGH placed on any internet site by anyone in your party and/or attending your wedding or event. If you stay here to attend a wedding anywhere in the area and leave us a negative review on any internet site you agree to a $500 fine for each negative review.

The hotel agrees to give you back your money if the negative review is taken offline.
The Union Street Guest House's Yelp page is currently full of one-star reviews, putting the hotel on blast for "terrible service" and using intimidation instead of correcting their policies to meet their guests' needs. 

Yelp

Yelp

Business Insider reached out, but the Union Street Guest House was unavailable for comment.