Nov. 9 (UPI) — TripAdvisor is flagging the pages of hotels where sexual assaults are reported.
The company flagged three hotels in Mexico on Wednesday, because it noted it was “made aware of recent media reports or events concerning this property which may not be reflected in reviews found on this listing.” The warning badge cautions customers to “perform additional research for information” about the properties.
“Those were just the first three,” Brian Hoyt, a TripAdvisor spokesman, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “We’ll be monitoring news coverage moving forward.”
The warnings will remain on the hotel page for three months, but the time could be extended if reports of sexual assault persist.
The inclusion of warning badges comes after TripAdvisor was accused of deleting posts about serious crimes including rape, robbery, sexual assault and druggings.
One woman, Kristie Love, was on vacation at the Iberostar Paraiso Maya resort on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula when, she said, she was raped by a security guard.
“I got up, ran through the resort. Made it to a lobby. ‘Please call, I’ve been raped, I’ve been raped. Please call the police.’ ‘No, we’re not going to call the police ma’am,'” Love told CBS.
When she posted her experience on TripAdvisor, the company deleted it, saying it violated its “family-friendly” policy, Love said.
The Journal Sentinel reported at least two other women reported assaults at the same resort after the post was taken down.
Steve Kaufer, the CEO of TripAdvisor, said the company, “apologized to the victim [Love] for her experience.”
“Mr. Kaufer, six months after my warnings were deleted, my nightmare and motivating reason for pursuing this criminal became reality,” Love wrote in a letter.
“I was contacted by the parents of a 19-year-old girl from New Jersey who was also raped by a security guard at the same property while on vacation with her family.”
TripAdvisor, which more than 400 million people use annually, said it originally wouldn’t publish travelers’ warnings because they were “hearsay.”
