Grand illiusion: Fans have written reviews for Wes Anderson's fictional hotel on comparison website TripAdvisor. Photo / TripAdvisor.com, Supplied
Grand illiusion: Fans have written reviews for Wes Anderson's fictional hotel on comparison website TripAdvisor. Photo / TripAdvisor.com, Supplied
The Grand Hotel is a cinematic jewel in the hospitality crown of the Republic of Zubroka. On travel website Trip Advisor the hotel has an almost perfect score of 4.5 out of five.
Reviewers have called the Hotel Budapest an "oasis of sophistication" with the only thing tempering the rapturous reviews are the "parochial border force" which user Jo W notes makes it notoriously difficult to get there.
Perhaps another thing which will make your stay nigh-on impossible is the fact that this is a fictional hotel. No such hotel exists.
Fans of the film director Wes Anderson will recognise the whimsical building from 2015's The Grand Budapest Hotel movie, and its all-star cast of Ralph Fiennes, Bill Murray and Tilda Swinton.
At the top of the TripAdvisor page is a message from the website reading: "This is a fictional place, as seen in the movie 'The Grand Budapest Hotel.' Please do not try to book a visit here."
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel? Udaipur India. Photo / 123RF
In case the dry satire of the reviews were lost on visitors to the site, the site has had to place a warning to holiday planners looking for a whimsical stay at the stunningly symmetrical hotel. (The film's design won Grand Budapest four Oscars and many fans.)
Film fans have taken to the holiday ratings website to celebrate their favourite fictional holiday locations. Across the website you can find celebrations of such imaginary places as The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Fawlty Towers. Most of which have been given the disclaimer a "this is a fictional place". However, this has been overlooked by many using the website to plan holidays.
These fictional listings are mostly good clean fun not aiming to mislead anyone, however they comes at a time when TripAdvisor is facing an existential crisis.
Last year Vice writer Oobah Butler managed to "game" the website into placing his garden shed as the top-rated TripAdvisor restaurant in London. Butler, who had made a living selling fake reviews to hotels, was aware that there is a very fine line between fiction and reality on the travel-booking site.
With only photos of fake dishes made from shaving cream and reviews from family and friends, he was able to hoodwink everyone from Norwegian tourists to TripAdvisor into thinking his London shed was a top-tier restaurant.
In spite of the humorous method, Butler's piece had a serious message: that there is a black market for fake reviews and plenty of financial incentive to decieving the website.
TripAdvisor explains that there are a number of steps that it takes to avoid fake reviews and fake properties appearing on its website. Most of the fictional hotels on the website are a mixture of marketing for movies, or pop culture references by delinquent film fans.
It looks to target fake reviews of three types: Boosting, vandalism or review optimisation schemes. The fictional filmic tributes don't seem to fall into any of these three categories however, the black market of TripAdvisor reviews is a real concern for users of the website.
The In 2011, the UK's Advertising Standards Authority said the website could no longer "claim or imply that all the reviews that appeared on the website were from real travellers, or were honest, real or trusted".
In response the website changed its slogan from "Reviews You Can Trust" to "Know better. Book better. Go better."
Stanley Hotel: Jack Nicholson on the set of The Shining by Stanley Kubrick. Photo / Sunset Boulevard,Corbis via Getty Images)
TripAvisor's online tributes to fictional hotels
Grand Budapest Hotel
Reviews for the imaginary hotel are lovingly sprinkled with references to Wes Anderson's characters, particularly Zero Moustafa: "On arrival at the hotel we were greeted by an over zealous young lobby boy with the most curious moustache I have ever witnessed," writes Gerry G.
Stanley Hotel
Some real-life hotels are haunted by fictional counterparts. The Stanley Hotel was the inspiration and setting for Overlook Hotel in Stanley Kubrik's horror film The Shining. Ghosts, spooky children and references to "redrum" jump out of the reviews page. One reviewer used his 200 character limit to repeat "All work and no play makes jack a dull boy" – lines echoed by Jack Nicholson's character, driven mad by the haunted hotel.
It comes as some concern that one user appears to have been trying to ship off a friend to this imaginary retirement home in India. In the TripAdvisor comments travel forum Barry W writes, "My good friend William will be in Udaipur 9th-13th December and I have organised him a car and driver out to the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel for lunch." Perhaps more concerning is his search for company for his friend William - who is described as a "single traveller 69 year old man", - and "maybe 1 or 2 others that may be interested in doing the same." Perhaps he was hoping for the dames Judy Dench and Maggie Smith who star in the film of the same name?
Park Hyatt Tokyo
The hotel which acts as a backdrop for Sophia Coppola's movie Lost in Translation, has at least six separate reviews quoting Bill Murray's line, "for relaxing time, make it Suntory time."
The Hotel California
Many visitors are surprised to find the hotel immortalised in rock band The Eagles hit about an inescapable afterlife is a real place. One was delighted to report on TripAdvisor "not only can you check out, but you can also leave"
Fawlty Towers Hotel (Azerbaijan)
A missed opportunity. Not one reference to John Cleese's Basil Faulty or the hotel's namesake which has become a byword for imaginary hotel.
"Overall, it was the price, cleanliness and location which sold Fawlty Towers to us," writes Vagabondsheila. But then again, the name alone might be warning enough to some.
