Posted by Steven Miles, LHMU
It seems pretty obvious to me. Honesty is a fundamental tenet of personal ethics.
Whenever I’ve talked about The First Star with hotel managers I’ve offered, even encouraged them to get online and comment. If they disagree with someone I, or you or a worker has said, jump on and give their side of the story.
I was pretty shocked though when it became clear management at some hotels were posting comments not on behalf of the hotel, but instead pretending to be workers or customers. Someone from the same IP address has been pretending to be workers at a range of hotels – indicating that it is likely to be someone pretending rather than one computer being used by a range of people at one hotel.
Sites like this thrive on lively debate. But we expect contributors to be honest about who they are. On a site dedicated to encouraging ethical behaviour, I guess we know hotels willing to deceive our readers aren’t going to make the grade.
I was also surprised these managers weren’t aware that web servers track the originating IP address of visitors. I guess I’ve tipped them off now, they’ll probably be racing to the nearest internet café to launch their next tirade, which probably starts:
“I’m a housekeeper at this hotel and I love it. I used to get bored only cleaning 14 rooms per shift, so I was so glad when they increased it to 19. Management here are so lovely, they really take care of me – sometimes I worry so much about the hotels profitability I give some of my pay back. $14.85 an hour really is too much for the kind of work I do.”
We reserve the right to “out” these folk, either here on the site or at the next big industry conference. But in the meantime we trust you’ll be able to tell the difference between genuine and useful contributions and those posted by these few managers. They stand out once you know to look for them.
