Football fans of the Polish club Legia Warsaw are not yet finished with their online smear campaign against the city of Alkmaar. After the iconic Cheese Market, several catering establishments are now being bombarded with bad reviews that appear to come from Poland.
Hotel Alkmaar is one of those hotels that is harassed online with one-star reviews from people with Polish-sounding names, says employee Rowan Velder. “That really bothers us. Bad reviews mean fewer bookings. Then people quickly think: “We’ll continue driving for a while.”
Hatred against Alkmaar
“After the loss we received more than 25 reviews. Why?”, Sanne de Boer also wonders. She is the manager of the King’s Inn hotel in Alkmaar. They had Polish guests under their roof during the football match. According to De Boer, that contact went ‘very well’, until negative reviews about the hotel appeared online.
“They were very nice in our house, they had a nice beer and it was a small party. But yes: they hate Alkmaar,” said the manager.
Bad case
The National Beer Museum also received many unsubstantiated negative reviews online. Joost Vriend is treasurer of the museum and not amused. He says that, like other Alkmaar entrepreneurs, he works hard to welcome guests to the city. “And if people who have never even been here can still leave bad reviews, then yes, that is a bad thing.”
De Boer hopes to ‘stay strong’ together with all other Alkmaar entrepreneurs. “There are of course many companies in Alkmaar that are dealing with this. We all hope that this can be blocked.”
Joint notification
Koninklijke Horeca Nederland calls on entrepreneurs to report reviews to Google. In collaboration with the municipality and AlkmaarMarketing, they are trying to take all negative messages from these presumably Polish Legia fans offline at once.
Peter Rozenbeek of the municipality of Alkmaar says that they have asked employees and council members to report the negative reviews. “We have also received messages from entrepreneurs about this and have been in contact with AlkmaarMarketing.”