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He clicks the button again and the TripAdvisor page for the hotel comes up on the screen. He scrolls through some of the reviews, giving me time to read them. Although there are a few five-star reviews, the review count against the posters is usually one and the English is poor, which indicates that they’re probably posted by the hotel itself. The majority of the others are not good, and some themes quickly start to develop. The food and drink come in for particular criticism, as do the lack of sunbeds, the rudeness of the staff, and the poky rooms with tiny bathrooms. I’m horrified.
‘I don’t understand,’ I say, after we’ve read and digested a few pages of reviews. ‘It sounds like a totally different hotel to the one I stayed in!’
‘You can see the problem though, can’t you?’ Mark asks. ‘It undermines our credibility as a luxury travel magazine if we strongly recommend a place that subsequently turns out to be awful. It’s also not good for your image, because it dents trust in you as an impartial reviewer.’
Oh shit, this is much worse than I thought. He’s going to let me go. He’s trying to build up to it gently but that is definitely where this is heading. I’m in big, big trouble. If he lets me go, word will quickly get out thatVoyages Luxeshas dropped me, and it won’t be long before my other work dries up too. This is the worst part of being a freelance journalist; it takes years of hard graft to climb the greasy pole to the point where you can make a decent living, but only one fuck-up to send you straight back to the bottom again. It’s like a game of snakes and ladders, only without any ladders. I blink back the tears that I can feel forming. I’ve worked so hard to get to where I am, it seems grossly unfair that a single hotel review can undo it all. I focus all my energy on maintaining my composure.
‘I’m sorry,’ he continues. ‘You know how highly I rate you as a writer, but ever since Peter Smallbone drew this to my attention, I’ve been put in an impossible situation.’
Peter ‘drew it to his attention’, did he? I bet he was positively salivating with glee at the prospect of bringing me down. Bastard. What is his problem with me anyway?
No. No fucking way. I’m not going to take this lying down. I’m not going to let my career be wrecked by someone like Peter bloody Smallbone. My mind is whirling, desperately trying to think of a way to save this. I needsomething, and fast. If I let Mark get to the end of what he wants to say it’ll be too late.
The glimmer of an idea starts to form, and I grab it. It isn’t great, but it’s all I’ve got to work with. When you’re drowning, you’ll grasp at anything to keep your head above water, and this is how I feel right now.
‘Do you ever wonder,’ I venture, ‘whether the review process is fundamentally flawed? Whether we should be doing it completely differently?’
This is enough to throw him off track and buy me the precious seconds I need to try to put some flesh on the very bare bones of my idea. I’ve got to pitch like I’ve never pitched before, and without any time to prepare. Not ideal, but it’s amazing how impending disaster allows your mind to focus.
‘What do you mean?’ he asks.
‘Think about it,’ I reply. ‘The hotel invites reviewers to come. They know who we are and when we’re arriving. They lay on the famil to guide us to all the stuff they want us to see, and they give us the best rooms. The staff are doubtless instructed to be especially nice to us. In this instance, the hotel hadn’t even opened its doors to the public when I stayed; all the guests were journalists, so it was even easier for them to create a good impression. They were probably at no more than twenty per cent capacity, so it wasn’t hard for them to put on a convincing show, and I bought it. I expect the others did too. Have you looked at other reviews from the time?’
Mark fiddles with his laptop and brings up a search page. Before long we’ve looked at a series of reviews of the same hotel from other travel magazines and blogs. We don’t read them in depth, but we read the summaries and, like mine, they are universally positive. I recognise the names of most of the authors and they’ve all been around for a while, like me.
‘What are you suggesting?’ he asks.
‘Why don’t I go back there, but incognito this time?’
Mark sits back in his chair, tilts his head back and stares at the ceiling. I’ve seen him do this before when he’s thinking, so I sit and wait. My heart is in my mouth; it’s no exaggeration to say that my whole future hangs on his next words. After what feels like an age, he tilts his head forward again and his eyes meet mine.
‘Go on,’ he says.
3
JANUARY
‘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 reassess. 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 in the UK our readers want to look at pictures of beautiful hotels, beaches, safaris or whatever, and imagine themselves in those places.Voyages Luxesis just as much about fantasy as it is about travel. Did you know that the latest consumer data shows that 29 per cent of our subscribers have never been abroad at all? We aren’t a magazine likeWhich?, where people want to know that this product is good and that product is bad. We’re more likeNational Geographic, but with booking information. How does your negative review of a hotel fit into that?’
Damn. 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, unlike our usual trips, they don’t know who it is or when they’re arriving. We’d need to agree what package the hotel is offering to fund in advance, of course, but I’d make the booking like a normal customer, rather than them liaising with you. They’d still want to pick and choose some experiences, I’m sure, but instead of the usual famil session, we could ask them to 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.’
