美国国家公共电台 NPR Falling Stars: Negative Yelp Reviews Target Trump Restaurants, Hotels

 

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

NPR has done a lot of reporting on links between Donald Trump¹'s presidency² and his business interests, how serving in the White House may be enriching Trump and his family. But in one way at least, Trump's political career might be working against his company. As NPR's Jim Zarroli reports, online reviews of Trump properties have gotten a lot more negative.

JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE³: Last summer, Donald Trump rocked the political world by winning the Republican nomination⁴ for president. And something else happened around the same time. People started leaving a lot of really bad reviews for Trump properties online, like this one for the Trump International Hotel and Tower in New York.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Not a pleasant experience. I felt like I was going to be groped the whole time I was in the hotel. Maybe it was just the vibe from the name of the hotel, won't be visiting again.

ZARROLI: Or this one from Mar-a-Lago.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Very loud and distracting dinner atmosphere. I just wanted a quiet, peaceful meal. But White House staff and diplomats⁵ at the next table kept shouting out classified information.

ZARROLI: We had NPR staffers read those online reviews. Of course, there are also a lot of positive reviews from Trump fans. But the marketing⁶ software company Signpost says the bad ones now outnumber the good ones. Yelp⁷ has even posted a banner on the page for Trump properties, warning that the reviews may be suspect. Yelp has software that weeds out reviews for political content.

But it's not just that the reviews have gotten snarkier, Signpost CEO and founder⁸ Stuart Wall says there are a lot more one-star ratings than there used to be for Trump properties.

STUART WALL: The rating itself has fallen a bit faster since he was inaugurated. In February in particular, we saw a spike⁹ in one-star reviews. There were about 160 one-star reviews written for Trump properties in the month of February alone.

ZARROLI: And that's a problem because when consumers choose hotels and restaurants, they often don't read the reviews. They just go by the number of stars a place gets. Sometimes they just start by looking at the highest-ranked properties and don't even scroll¹⁰ further down the list. Michael Luca, professor at Harvard Business School, says online ratings have become very important. Luca did a study on how changes in star ratings on Yelp affected¹¹ the revenue of restaurants in Seattle.

MICHAEL LUCA: For independent restaurants, Yelp ratings matter a lot. So a one star increase maps to about 5 to 9 percent increase in sales.

ZARROLI: And by that measure, a drop of one star in the rankings for Trump's U.S. properties could amount to a loss of $33 million on the company's annual revenues, which Signpost estimates at about $557 million. The Trump Organization did not respond to requests for comment.

Trump, of course, is an unusual case. Michael Luca cautions that Trump already has a well-established national brand name, so online reviews may not matter quite as much as they do for smaller properties. He also points out that The Trump Organization is building lots of new hotels. And it just raised fees at Mar-a-Lago.

LUCA: It seems that at least Trump thinks that the benefits of the brand building of being president that they are now kind of trying to translate into business gains seems to be a bigger factor than any negative effect that might be coming through an influx¹² of negative reviews.

ZARROLI: For Donald Trump the businessman, the lousy reviews on Yelp and TripAdvisor suggest there's a downside to the presidency. But so far, at least, there's a big upside as well. Jim Zarroli, NPR News, New York.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE SHACKS SONG, "NO SURPRISE - INSTRUMENTAL")

1 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

2 presidency   

n.总统(校长，总经理)的职位(任期)

参考例句：

• Roosevelt was elected four times to the presidency of the United States.罗斯福连续当选四届美国总统。
• Two candidates are emerging as contestants for the presidency.两位候选人最终成为总统职位竞争者。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 nomination   

n.提名，任命，提名权

参考例句：

• John is favourite to get the nomination for club president.约翰最有希望被提名为俱乐部主席。
• Few people pronounced for his nomination.很少人表示赞成他的提名。

5 diplomats   

n.外交官( diplomat的名词复数 )；有手腕的人，善于交际的人

参考例句：

• These events led to the expulsion of senior diplomats from the country. 这些事件导致一些高级外交官被驱逐出境。
• The court has no jurisdiction over foreign diplomats living in this country. 法院对驻本国的外交官无裁判权。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 marketing   

n.行销，在市场的买卖，买东西

参考例句：

• They are developing marketing network.他们正在发展销售网络。
• He often goes marketing.他经常去市场做生意。

7 yelp   

vi.狗吠

参考例句：

• The dog gave a yelp of pain.狗疼得叫了一声。
• The puppy a yelp when John stepped on her tail.当约翰踩到小狗的尾巴，小狗发出尖叫。

8 Founder   

n.创始者，缔造者

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
• According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说，罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。

9 spike   

n.长钉，钉鞋；v.以大钉钉牢，使...失效

参考例句：

• The spike pierced the receipts and held them in order.那个钉子穿过那些收据并使之按顺序排列。
• They'll do anything to spike the guns of the opposition.他们会使出各种手段来挫败对手。

10 scroll   

n.卷轴，纸卷；(石刻上的)漩涡

参考例句：

• As I opened the scroll,a panorama of the Yellow River unfolded.我打开卷轴时，黄河的景象展现在眼前。
• He was presented with a scroll commemorating his achievements.他被授予一幅卷轴，以表彰其所做出的成就。

11 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

12 influx   

n.流入，注入

参考例句：

• The country simply cannot absorb this influx of refugees.这个国家实在不能接纳这么多涌入的难民。
• Textile workers favoured protection because they feared an influx of cheap cloth.纺织工人拥护贸易保护措施，因为他们担心涌入廉价纺织品。