Eleanor have you considered adding this as a POLL on the forum so those can vote and you can get the feedback that way? Might be a nice way to collect data.
Turning the tables on TripAdvisor
Submitted by Eleanor Brown on Thu, 09/16/2010 - 8:28am
Wrote this piece for our blog yesterday - thought it might be of interest to you. I imagine you guys have a method of sharing the names of badly behaved guests - would you consider signing up to a nationwide service?
http://bedandbreakfastworldblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/turning-the-tables-on-tripadvisor/
Oops, just seen Arkansawyer's post on the same thing... 
Oops, just seen Arkansawyer's post on the same thing...
Yes but my post was just giving the UK info. Your post brings it across the Atlantic and asks about doing it here. That's good. It needs to be discussed, including how it would and could be used.
For one thing, I'm wanting to take reservations online, in real time, rather than making guests submit a request and wait to see if they're accepted. This would mean that, ideally, the online reservation software would check the blacklist immediately and refuse the reservation for people on the list...if refusing them is what we want.
For another thing, what would we do with the information once we got it. If someone submits a request for a reservation, would we just refuse them, or make the reservation but be watching them like a hawk, forearmed with the blacklist info.
Perhaps there could be a rating system that gives an overall score, like TA has. Only refuse reservations for the worst offenders or something.
That's an interesting idea - giving the guests a rating!
Oops, just seen Arkansawyer's post on the same thing...
For one thing, I'm wanting to take reservations online, in real time, rather than making guests submit a request and wait to see if they're accepted. This would mean that, ideally, the online reservation software would check the blacklist immediately and refuse the reservation for people on the list...if refusing them is what we want.
If you had a rating system for guests, then you could set your reservations software up so that guests of a certain level get rejected, others with a slightly better rating could have the booking refered to the owner for approval so they could review the rating and reviews before confirming the booking.
Most B&B's current privacy policies are that they will not share guest information with anyone for any reason. If they chose to share guest data with an online service like this, they would have to disclose that they are willing to share information with that service ahead of time.