Review Searching? Watch for those (near) perfect "10/10's"

From time to time, we have and truly enjoy the opportunity to travel within Vietnam to explore new areas and learn more about different regions. Tourism is our passion and we enjoy seeing other hotels, resorts etc. that display the same care for their guests. Indeed, we also preview potential stays by photos, location and certainly recent reviews that match our market of guests. We are very proud to have helped numerous guests with onward travel plans and even made many bookings for them, saving our guests time and money vs. online booking sites.

Having traveled a considerable amount over the years ourselves, we are also weary of the ever present mantra: “sounds too good to be true” and indeed, sadly enough there are hotels around the globe, here in Vietnam and certainly here in the Ben Tre area that manipulate review scores and thus you see an abhorrent number of “10s” with very little feedback or the other way where there is then endless excessive positive feedback. Travel, especially when you experience different standards, different hotel styles (apartment, homestay, hotel, boutique resort, large scale resort) allows us to naturally compare our offerings to those elsewhere. Best practice is something that is learned over time and we do our best daily to learn from the needs of our guests and when possible, to apply new ideas of service to our Eco Resort. One source of pride we have here is that we do our best, for every guest we serve. As the saying goes “we give 110%”. However, conceptually, our concept is our concept – it is not a copy / paste of something else, somewhere else – the layout of our garden in fact is stretched in places as we wanted to keep as many of the grand trees in place as possible. Unequivocally, this is our family home and our strength is the amazing local team we have assembled, from our chefs, servers, housekeeping, front desk and manager.

But the reason for this blog, is as labelled, about the “10s”. As a hotel, regardless of the scoring system, numbers, stars, points etc. everyone, including this hotel wants to (and hopes to) receive 10/10, 5 stars, 5/5, 5 circles on the respective websites where we are reviewed. Like most hotels, this is also a way to receive feedback and act on filling gaps, when identified and importantly where possible. When discussing 10/10 as a perfect score, Hotels in the 9.2 – 9.6 range are doing a lot of good things to the overall comfort and service levels towards their guests. But respectfully, and again, coming from a background in travel and having personally stayed at many hotels, those in the 9.8+ level are usually on a different level, mostly with idyllic settings / locations – In Vietnam places like the Avana Retreat (Mai Chau) Tu Lan Lodge (Phong Nha area) the iconic Metropole Legend in Hanoi, or the Four Seasons Nam Hai in Hoi An. Hotels like these in their own respective ways provide impeccable service, location and service standards.

However, others are implementing strategies (rehearsed acting, not organic) interactions, all the way up to and sometimes, inclusive of discounts, freebies, impossible promotions etc. The most heinous of these situations is one that we see here too often in the Mekong Delta. Wherein a businessperson from the big city or abroad will build and install a local family to operate a “homestay”. This is in no way illegal, but when they utilize blatant dishonesty stating they are the owners – when in fact they are not, to cover for an actual owner who’s instructed them to do this – it’s sad and all too common reality in this region. Many of these spurious “local homestays” were opened by foreign operated travel companies. While these homestays are foreign owned or controlled (controlled is where the owner uses your land, tells you what to build, how to operate and what to say – but takes care of all marketing etc.) it is truly remarkable that they do not list their business on Google. This again is not from lack of understanding in how to do it, their parent travel company focuses and thrives because of Google! They do so intentionally to limit the number of channels they appear on to also control where the reviews are originating from. Calculated, and willing to lose a good percentage of new bookings by choosing not to list on Google. All because, operating under the guise of a local “house”, provides them with 60-80% occupancy from their travel company. So, when you book these 9.8 / 9.9 Homestays / Resorts etc. you are one of only a few rooms nightly that they need focus on – and unequivocally, they do focus on you. As written by Shakespeare: “All the world's a stage, / And all the men and women merely players…” In business, the term for this is Localwashing and it is truly an attempt to attract customers that would NOT have interest in a homestay if they knew the true organizational structure.

As always you need to ask, “If they are a truly “local” family run operation, then why are they expanding to other parts of the country – but again under a different name?” Different names, different colors etc. Again, it is not illegal to do this, some hotel chains have 1000 hotels! But it is the tactic involved of hiding this information as it would absolutely change the view of being local and operated by a family. In western countries where company registries etc. are more visible, accessible to the public, spurious entities like these are usually called out on social media and so customers are more likely to be aware of these things and make their own choices accordingly. In developing countries, it’s very hard to come across information like this

The last level to the above is the way they compensate staff and managers by commissions to achieve a 10/10 review for each acquired. If you have spent a few weeks in Vietnam, it’s likely that you’ve come across the “discount based on a 5* review” request, wherein they approach you, and you show them you’ve given them a 5* review THEN you receive a discount. They do the same AFTER your review on a hotel booking site – they will contact you to ask for removal (for a 7/10) because that damages the overall scoring. In Tourism, you learn that there are also cultural norms and beliefs in regards to review scores, and many will not provide a 5/5 or a 10/10 because those are sacred levels for them, for their overall experience expectations and this, as much as the other reasons above are exactly why it’s extremely difficult to operate a hotel / homestay based strictly on the goal of achieving immaculate reviews – as you certainly will have to employ numerous tactics to maintain these scores over the long term and the math is arduous! ( Imagine your past 20 reviews: 16 reviews of 10, 4 reviews of 8 is amazing but its also 9.6! Then you get an honest review of 5 - in our case they assumed it was 5/5 scoring as they confused booking sites but that instantly drops it down to 9.4!) When you run a true hotel, you also have guests coming for family visits nearby, business travelers, funerals, weddings - everything. This is also why some homes / homestays want to hide from google - they are strictly looking for foreign tourists.

In summary, if it “sounds too good to be true” – go with your gut. If they are putting the word “home” or “homestay” in the name – then they have a responsibility to be upfront if it is not that management structure. In the Mekong Delta, before you get on a boat – ask to see the company license, tourists are not allowed on “local touring boats” – they do not mention this because it is an extremely difficult process and undertaking. Take a Halong Bay Junk Sailboat cruise in Halong Bay or a bucket boat in Hoi An, but do not support those in the Mekong Delta – it is not the culture here.

Simply, come stay with us and know that this family supports our local community in way of yearly waterway / village clean-ups, school bursaries and only provides authentic touring experiences on a company certified fleet.