Continuing in the grand tradition of chefs biting back at food critics or blaming "demoralizing" Yelpers for their shutters, one Australian restaurateur is plotting a takedown of sorts against travel review site TripAdvisor. After receiving a couple of negative reviews for her Lake Macquarie restaurant Milano's on the Lake, Claire Rampling tells The Australian that she's making it her mission to get the site to change its policies, explaining, "I want to open the floodgates to allow people to close their business listings off TripAdvisor."
Rampling points out that while most of the restaurant's TripAdvisor reviews are positive, there have been a couple ranty negative reviews she fears will kill her business, such as one that reads, "Walking into the restaurant..(if you can call it that) you could see the function area to the left which was messy with mounds of salt on one table and rolled up table cloths. ... That area is a marketing opportunity and could only be described as 'pathetic.'"
So why is the restaurant on the TripAdvisor site in the first place? Well, Rampling says the previous owners submitted its listing and now TripAdvisor refuses to remove it as company policy. She's now calling not only for TripAdvisor to demand proof from its reviewers that they actually went to a restaurant, but she also plans to band together with other businesses to force the site to allow them to remove their listings, telling the paper, "It's ridiculous they can't remove the comment and my listing. Anyone can just write anything - vindictive people out there who have a platform to destroy your business and destroy it they will."
· Australian restaurant takes on TripAdvisor over bad review [The Australian]
· All TripAdvisor Coverage on Eater [-E-]