AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 3
“If I go back incognito, then I can experience the Bellavista as an ordinary holidaymaker,” I explain. “No famil, no special treatment, and a standard room. I can find out what’s really going on, and it’s an opportunity for you to put the record straight. I will be up front in the review and say that I loved the hotel when I first visited, but the TripAdvisor reviews concerned me, so I decided to make a return trip to re-assess. If it’s still as good as I thought it was the first time, then I’ll say so. We know that there are a lot of people who will write wildly critical reviews on TripAdvisor because of some inconsequential thing that nobody else would care about, and that may be the case here. However, if standards have slipped to the extent that these reviews claim, then I’ll say that’s what has happened.”
“So, you’d submit a negative review and expect us to publish it?” Mark asks. “It’s not really our style, is it? We’re all about the idea of dream holidays. When it’s cold, wet and miserable outside our readers want to look at pictures of beautiful hotels, beaches, safaris or whatever, and imagine themselves in those places. Voyages Luxes is just as much about fantasy as it is about travel. Did you know that the latest consumer data shows that twenty-nine percent of our subscribers have never been abroad at all? We aren’t a magazine like Which?, where people want to know that this product is good and that product is bad. We’re more like National Geographic, but with booking information. How does your negative review of a hotel fit into that?”
Shit. I thought I had him, but he’s slipping away again. I grit my teeth and fight on.
“I know, but if I don’t get the opportunity to correct this, then nobody wins. Your credibility as a magazine is dented, and my career is over,” I tell him, baldly. “You know me, Mark. You’ve worked with me for years, and you’re always saying how much you like my stuff. Give me the opportunity to put this right. You don’t have to make a big deal of the review if it’s negative. Why not review some other hotels on the island that cater to the same market, and include the Bellavista in passing? If it’s as bad as TripAdvisor would lead us to believe, it could go in as ‘One to avoid’, and I could say that it seems to have gone downhill since my first visit. If it’s still good, I put it as a ‘Lucky dip’ choice, or something like that.”
“OK, but how would this work in practice?” He’s back on the hook, and I think fast to make sure I keep him there.
“It’s basically a mystery shopper concept,” I explain. “The hotel knows that a journalist is coming, but they don’t know who it is, or when they’re arriving. Instead of the usual famil session, they submit a famil pack in advance, so I have all the information without having to come face to face with them and reveal who I am. I do everything I would normally do, but under the radar. If they want, I could reveal myself and debrief the manager at the end. That way they get something out of it too.”
“I think you’re forgetting something,” Mark says, after another uncomfortable pause. “Even if you don’t announce who you are, the hotel will know that someone is coming, and a young woman travelling on her own is going to stand out. They’ll be on to you.”
Have you ever seen those YouTube videos of people landing large fish? This is starting to feel like that. Every time I try to reel him in, he thrashes and pulls away. I’m not done though. Mentally I grasp the fishing rod and give an almighty pull.
“You’re right!” I tell him, as reckless inspiration strikes, “so what if I didn’t go alone? What’s the one thing that you’ve always criticised in my reviews?”
“Your photos,” Mark replies without hesitating.
“So, what if I took a photographer? You’d get the writing you say you like, with decent pictures to go with it. We could pretend to be a couple and wouldn’t stand out at all.”
“Too expensive,” he counters.
“I disagree. You pay photographers by the image, don’t you, so there is no extra cost there as you’re still buying the images at the same rate. You pay me for the submissions. The hotel covers the cost of the stay, so the only additional cost is an extra flight. I would say that the value you’d get would far outweigh the cost.”
“And which photographer would you take?” he asks.
And this is the point where my plan unravels. I wrack my brains furiously to see if I can think of someone suitable. I know a couple of photographers, but not well enough that I could ask them to come and pretend to be a couple with me. The only one I can think of who might agree is Stuart, and I’d spend all my time trying to stop him hitting on me. I realised that my mental fishing line has snapped, Mark is swimming away scot free, and my shoulders slump in defeat.
“I don’t know,” I say, quietly.
Mark tilts his head back again, and the silence stretches horribly between us. Now that I know it’s over, I can’t bear the waiting. Why can’t he just deliver the killer blow and let me slink away? Suddenly he gets up and opens the door.
“Toby, would you mind joining us for a minute?” he calls.
In the seconds it takes Toby to cross the lobby, enter the room and sit down, my hope soars again. If Mark didn’t think there was any merit in the idea I’ve just pitched, he wouldn’t be bringing Toby into it, would he?
“Toby,” Mark begins. “How would you feel about going on an incognito trip with Madison here?”
Toby takes his time considering the idea and, after a lengthy pause, he speaks.
“Sounds intriguing. Go on.”
“Madison thinks there is a problem with the way we do our hotel reviews, because the hotels know who we are and when we’re coming. This has caused her, and us, to get our fingers burned. Her proposal is therefore that she undertakes an undercover trip, where the hotels don’t know she’s coming, to get a more realistic flavour. However, if she goes alone then she’ll stand out like a sore thumb and the hotels will be onto her in a flash. So, she’s proposed taking a photographer along, which is where you come in. The idea is that you travel as a couple, so you blend in, but also the quality of the pictures improves because they’re being taken by – no offence here, Madison – someone who knows what they’re doing.”
Before Toby has a chance to reply, there’s a knock on the door and a woman, who I’m guessing must be Robyn, sticks her head into the meeting room.
“Mark,” she admonishes, “Toby is supposed to be meeting me. I know I’m running late but that’s no excuse to kidnap him!”
“Sorry Robyn, can you let me keep him for just five minutes? I’ll be as quick as I can.”
Robyn sighs, obviously knowing that argument is futile. “Fine. I’ll wait in the lobby. Five minutes though, please Mark. I’m behind enough as it is.”
As soon as the door closes, Mark turns back to Toby.
“Well, what do you think?”
