Ash Marsh, general manager at the Star & Anchor, Uxbridge, was stunned when he saw the review posted on Saturday (17 December), which read: “The place is really cosy… nice food…. Good beer and exceptional choice of drinks but when groups of POLISH people arrive… the tranquillity and calmness are gone… then you will feel u r drinking in the toughest pub of Hackney or Brixton... pity but it’s true.”
Marsh and several other members of staff contacted TripAdvisor to get the review removed but were appalled when they received a response saying the review complied with the company’s submission guidelines.
'Xenophobic review'
Marsh told The Morning Advertiser (MA): “We received a slightly xenophobic review on Saturday and rather than confront the person ourselves we thought we would report it to TripAdvisor thinking it would be taken down straight away.”
When they were told otherwise, Marsh decided to post the review on twitter and “shame” TripAdvisor into removing it.
Marsh’s post was shared by more than 150 Twitter users and the review was eventually removed.
He said: “I’m almost certain that without everyone’s help and without the exposure it would still be there.
“We’re a friendly, inclusive pub so it was a shame to see someone writing stuff like that. We welcome everyone. We get very well-behaved, lovely guests of every nationality.
'Lovely atmosphere'
“I was working on Saturday and it was a lovely atmosphere. There wasn’t even a hint of any kind of menace or trouble or even anyone being boisterous.”
A spokesperson for TripAdvisor took to Twitter to explain the company’s response.
They told The MA: “We have a dedicated team whose job it is to manually investigate reviews that are reported to us and they work hard to uphold the guidelines we have in place.
"Inevitably, there will be cases in which content is close to the red line we draw, and in those situations we have to make a judgement as fairly and objectively as we can.
"In this case, upon reviewing our initial determination, we concluded that the review did not meet our guidelines and as such it has been removed.”