(10) Hotel bastante agradable, pequeño pero con lo mínimo para divertirte, la atención en bares si deja un poco que desear, la calidad de los tragos también es bastante baja. Los restaurantes también cumplen con los mínimo. La ubicación, es lejos del downtown, pero está al costado del puerto a Isla Mujeres (Opinion 9 Hotel A).

(Quite a nice hotel, small but fun, service at the bars leaves a little to be desired, the quality of the drinks is also quite low. Restaurants also meet minimum standards. The location is far from downtown, but it is next to the port to Isla Mujeres).

In responses from hotels, the number of occurrences of first person singular and plural pronouns are reversed, with occasional use of ‘yo’ (21 occurrences) in favour of ‘nosotros’ (589 cases), a less referential form that serves as an indicator of politeness while expressing a corporate and professional stance. Hotel responses are written as on behalf of company representatives and appear less individual, presenting action not individually but as a result of teamwork, as can be seen in (10) and (11). In any case, hotels strategically alternate the use of the singular and plural forms: ‘nosotros’ to show the corporate image (on behalf of all of us who work here), underlining the collective character of the company, while change to the singular brings the illocutionary force of individualisation. In this case, the person in charge of assisting the guest offers an apology to the guest and shows his or her personal commitment to remedy the problem or make reparations: ‘le quiero ofrecer la más cordial disculpa’ (I would like to offer you my sincerest apologies) or ‘le puedo asegurar’ (I wish to assure you), highlighting their commitment in the statement.

(11) Lamentamos que haya sentido que le quitara tiempo, pero le puedo asegurar que el simple hecho de conocer esta información es una inversión para tomar decisiones de alojamiento (Opinion 2 Hotel A).

(We regret that you felt that it wasted your time, but I can assure you that this information is very useful to us when taking decisions about the accommodation).

(12) En nombre todos los que trabajamos aquí quiero ofrecerle la más cordial disculpa por los inconvenientes que tuvo durante su estancia (Opinion 3 Hotel A).

(In the name of all of us who work here I would like to offer you our sincerest apologies for the inconvenience you experienced during your stay).

The use of the second person pronoun, on the other hand, indicates the audiences the review is targeting. In this sense, guests’ opinions do not explicitly indicate who they are addressing when they decide to publish their opinion, so it must be understood that the review does not have a specific audience and that, therefore, it is generically addressed to the platform’s users (see examples 9 and 10). However, there are cases where review authors do address readers directly, it being understood that these are the travellers who could potentially visit that hotel and are being warned of reviewers’ concerns (13).

In addition, the use of the second person singular pronoun appears (in 70 cases), offering an ambiguous reading, since it could be addressing the audience, or an impersonal construction, which is frequently used in spoken language (Enríquez 1984, Hidalgo Navarro 1996-97, Gómez Torrego 1994, De Mello 2000 , Guirado, 2011). The examples found are also abundant in user reviews from Argentina, which may indicate a trait of this South American variety of Spanish (14). Since review authors are relating something from the past (what they have experienced during their stay at a hotel), it can be interpreted that the impersonal construction used, together with the present tense, serves to provide the narrative with a real-time immediacy.