A fine line
By B.R.
AT SOME point, surely, businesses will learn. Another hotel yesterday fell foul of a social-media frenzy. This time it was the Union Street Guest House in Hudson, New York. And for good reason. It put a clause in the contract it asked wedding parties to sign telling them it would charge $500 for every bad review one of its guests posted online.
It is difficult to know where to start with this car crash of a policy. As many commentators have pointed out, threatening your guests is rarely a good strategy. For one thing, such an aggressive stance is bound to provoke exactly the kind of response the hotel was hoping to avoid—in this case in spades. CNN reported that:
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