By Hilary Lehman
On ABC's "Good Morning America" Monday, anchor Juju Chang wrinkled her nose as she spoke about the three dirtiest hotels in the nation -- a sneak peek from travel information site TripAdvisor.com for its list of the Top 10 dirtiest hotels in America for 2011.
"The ceiling was peeling. Walls were cracked. There were cigarette burns all over the room," Chang said, quoting a member review of a hotel as photos flashed on a TV screen in the background.
That review was written about the No. 3 dirtiest hotel in the country, as determined by TripAdvisor -- the Desert Inn at 900 N. Atlantic Ave. in Daytona Beach.
On Tuesday, TripAdvisor released the full Top 10 list. The list is based on anonymous, user-submitted reviews to the site. Out of 260 reviews, 80 percent recommended against staying at the Desert Inn. For the dirtiest-hotels list, only one component of the reviews factors into the rankings -- the cleanliness rating. Since its release this week, the TripAdvisor list has been featured by national TV news shows, newspapers, wire services and websites. As of Friday, the top result on Google News for "Daytona Beach hotel" was a story about the ranking.
HOTEL'S RESPONSE
Desert Inn manager Robin Hof said she and the rest of the staff are devastated by the negative publicity. "It is embarrassing, but we don't deserve the embarrassment," she said.
The staff works hard to keep the hotel clean, and the owners have put a large amount of money and effort into renovating the hotel in recent years, she said. About 70 to 80 percent of the hotel's guests are return visitors, many of whom have called in recent days offering their support.
"We're not a trashy hotel, by any means," Hof said. "I keep using the word classy, but that's what it is."
Hof said she was disappointed with TripAdvisor's lack of response to phone calls and e-mails from the hotel. She said she believed many of the reviews were fake or posted by competing hotels. "TripAdvisor is not literally coming in and checking anything themselves," she said. Desert Inn owner Irene Devlin, who has been in the hotel business for 60 years, said it was wrong that the ranking had become so widespread.
"To use TripAdvisor to destroy competitive business is a sad way of life," she said. "Hearsay is not evidence."
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