What are hotel reviews?
Hotel reviews are feedback left by guests after their stay. They share their experiences, good and bad, to help others make informed decisions. You can find these reviews on the hotel’s website, booking sites like Booking.com and Expedia, and review platforms like TripAdvisor.
Online hotel reviews are changing everything. With more than two out of three global travellers now using travel review websites before making a booking, and 93% of those saying online reviews influence their booking decisions – it’s clear hotel operators must become adept in the art of handling online guest reviews in order to stay competitive in today’s transparent business landscape.
As more and more guests turn to one another for advice on where to stay in cities around the world, the effectiveness of traditional hotel advertising is declining – while the impact of online hotel reviews is on the rise.
Failure to monitor, manage and respond to reviews will skew your hotel management strategy to issues that are unimportant to customers, as well as provide unhappy customers with ammunition for negative feedback on travel and social media sites.
This blog will give you an in-depth guide to managing online reviews at your hotel. Table of contents
Why are hotel reviews important?
Hotel reviews are more than just feedback – they can significantly influence your hotel’s success. Positive reviews can enhance your reputation and allow you to increase your rates, boosting your overall revenue performance. And it’s not just lip service! In fact, a one-point increase in your review score on a five-point scale can enable you to raise your room rates by 11% without affecting occupancy or market share.
To underline the importance of reviews to your hotel, here are some of the most moving statistics:
- 81% of travellers frequently or always read reviews before booking a hotel. 52% would never book a hotel that had zero reviews.
- 96% consider reviews important in the research phase. 79% will read between six and 12 reviews before making a purchase decision.
- 88% of travellers filter out hotels with an average star rating below three. 32% eliminated those with a rating below four.
- When deciding between two similar properties, 79% of consumers are more likely to reserve a room at the hotel with a higher rating.
- Customers will value guest ratings over a hotel’s brand 72% of the time. Guests will pay 24% more for a hotel with a 3.9 rating over one that’s rated 2.4 and even up to 35% more for a hotel with a 4.4 rating over one with a 3.9 rating.
- Four out of five believe a hotel that responds to reviews cares more about its customers.
- 85% agree that a thoughtful response to a review will improve their impression of the hotel.
Managing and improving your hotel’s online reviews is a more straightforward and simple task than you might think. Even though it may be time consuming, it will be worth it for the long term success of your business.
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Hotel review management
Dealing with online reviews can be frustrating, even for veteran hoteliers. Hotels often have limited ways to respond to reviews and can be targeted by fake or anonymous feedback. Plus, responding negatively to a bad review can sometimes make things worse, scaring off potential guests who don’t want a confrontational experience.
However, overcoming the hurdles of hotel review management and earning that word of mouth pays dividends. Findings showed that in Europe, if the percentage of excellent reviews grows by 10%, a hotel’s search ranking on TripAdvisor improves 11.3%. A 10% increase in the hotel’s average review score will also push a search ranking up by 6.1%.
Meanwhile, if the average review score of a hotel on TripAdvisor is improved by 10%, the expected number of bookings on TripAdvisor increases by 9% in Europe, and more significantly so in Asia-Pacific, by an impressive 15%.
But TripAdvisor is just one potential avenue for hotel reviews. How do you manage all those customer experiences across multiple platforms?
Managing hotel reviews on Tripadvisor
Tripadvisor allows guests to leave reviews about their stays, providing valuable insights for future guests and feedback for hotels. Here’s how it works:
- Guest reviews: Guests can post reviews anytime after their stay, sharing their experiences and rating various aspects of your hotel, such as cleanliness, service, and amenities.
- Review transparency: Reviews are visible to everyone, helping future guests make informed decisions based on past guest experiences.
- Hotel responses: Hotels can respond to reviews, addressing both positive and negative feedback to show their commitment to guest satisfaction.
Positive reviews here can significantly boost your search rankings and enhance credibility, as many travellers rely on TripAdvisor for trusted recommendations.
However, TripAdvisor has its drawbacks compared to other systems like Airbnb. The platform is prone to fake or malicious reviews, which can unfairly damage your hotel’s reputation.
Here’s a few tips to tackle those challenges:
- At checkout, kindly ask happy guests to share their experiences online.
- When you receive positive reviews, show your appreciation by thanking the guests.
- Regularly check TripAdvisor for new reviews so you can respond quickly.
- Don’t forget to share your best reviews on social media
Read our full guide to TripAdvisor reviews to perfect your strategy.
Managing hotel reviews on Airbnb
Airbnb has a different take on reviews, allowing both guests and hosts to review each other. This mutual system helps keep things fair and reduces the chances of fake or unfair reviews. Here’s how it works:
- Mutual reviews: Both guests and hosts write their reviews within a two-week window, and they’re published simultaneously. This transparency helps future guests make better decisions.
- Improved process: Before 2014, reviews were posted immediately, leading to ‘revenge reviews’. The updated system has made reviews more trustworthy.
- Extra measures: Airbnb uses several strategies to keep things fair:
- Verified identification: Hosts can require guests to have verified ID badges before booking.
- Guest profiles: Detailed profiles with pictures help hosts decide if a guest is suitable.
- Social connections: Users can link their profiles to social media, allowing hosts to see mutual friends and other reviews.
While Airbnb’s system is effective, it’s not flawless. Ridiculous reviews, like those blaming bad weather, can still slip through. Also, removing anonymity can mean that negative feedback follows someone for a long time. Airbnb users can connect to Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn. Hosts can tap into this information to see other reviews that have been posted, see mutual friends, and get a sense of the person who is coming to stay at their property.
Airbnb also has other measures in place to encourage fairness, including:
- Verified identification
- Hosts can require guests to hold verified ID badges before they accept a booking.
- Guest profiles
- Completed guest profiles, including pictures, enable hosts to investigate the suitability of guests.
- Social connection.
How to respond to hotel reviews
There are really only two types of guests who leave reviews; those eager to praise your property and those aiming to criticise it. Understanding how to respond to reviews from both groups is crucial for maintaining your hotel’s reputation.
Both groups require a similar approach. They all need to be responded to as quickly as possible in a calm, friendly, and thoughtful manner. There’s nothing you can do to change their experience, but you can let them know their voice has been heard, acknowledged, and had some effect on the way you run your business in the future.
Technically, there is a third group and these are the travellers who don’t leave a comment at all. It’s these guests that present a big opportunity for your hotel. If you can encourage this large contingent to post reviews you have a chance to not only increase your rating, but also your reach across many online platforms.
The more positive reviews there are of your property the better – and incentivising guests who might just be too lazy to post is the perfect way to acquire the reviews you need.
Once you have reviews to be proud of, you need to distribute them to as many channels as possible, including social media. The best thing about reviews is that they don’t cost you anything. Maintaining a constant presence online and highlighting your reviews will help you stay competitive at all times.
How to handle your guest reviews
Here’s a rundown of nine tips to handle your guest reviews.
- Having a plan in place to deal with online reviews should be part of an overall strategy for measuring your customer satisfaction and engagement.
- Be proactive and catch guest complaints before they go public. For instance, having a feedback system in place will give you access to real-time feedback, allowing you to respond to issues as they arise.
- Use social listening tools or a hotel reputation management system with real-time alerts to get on top of what guests are saying about you across review sites, blogs and social media.
- When responding to a complaint, be sure to acknowledge the poor experience, emphasise the changes you intend to make, and follow up with the customer as needed.
- Respond to issues as quickly as possible; the longer they go unaddressed, the longer they will fester and potentially get out of hand.
- Act on your promises to customers and move conversations offline when necessary to provide a higher level of personalised service.
- Limit the amount of different staff replying to reviews.
- Share customer feedback throughout your business. Your staff are your frontline brand ambassadors – but only if they understand the challenges and are incentivised to create the best customer experience possible.
- Don’t get defensive.
Use negative feedback to your advantage
The most feared of all feedback online is a negative review. The good news is bad reviews do not have to spell disaster. To the contrary, less-than-glowing comments about your hotel represent a great opportunity to respond to customers and show off your commitment to a high-level of quality service. In fact, savvy operators welcome the opportunity to respond to customers’ complaints (as well as praises) because it gives them a chance to shine.
How to respond to negative hotel reviews
Understanding how to respond to feedback is not just a competitive advantage, but potentially a means of ensuring your hotel stays in business.
You can easily turn complaints around and win hotel guests back – and these basic reputation management responses are your first line of defence.
Where a rational negative comment is posted, hotels do have options on how to respond.
Acknowledge and action
For a genuine, reasoned negative comment on customer experience, it is best for hotels to respond in a timely manner (within 72 hours of posting), acknowledging the issue and describing how it will be addressed. Ideally, a follow up post will occur after actioning the issue, and showing how the experience will not be repeated.
This is by far the best possible response to negative feedback, because online audiences are far more willing to value action and positive changes in behaviour, than think poorly of the initial negative experience.
Apologise and compensate
For a negative comment which illustrates an experience that was difficult or impossible to avoid, an appropriate response is to apologise for the poor experience and to privately offer either monetary compensation, or discounts on future bookings.
While this is unlikely to totally satisfy the customer with the stated poor experience, it will indicate to other customers, the prioritisation of customer experiences at the hotel. It’s important to take compensation offline where possible to avoid inviting those who like to complain for free stuff.
Apologise and thank
For negative comments that focus on pedantic details, the most appropriate response is an apology for the experience and an acknowledgement that this feedback will help shape your hotel’s future guest experience strategy.
This is far more useful than a response which states that the comment will be passed to a customer service team, because the customer already believes that service is the problem at the property.
As for the initial risk of negative reviews getting posted, if you are a hotelier that pays attention to guests and provides good service, you should get overwhelmingly positive feedback. Sporadic negative reviews will not hurt your reputation directly and, when followed regularly by new positive reviews, will disappear quite quickly into the background.
How to respond to negative hotel reviews examples
Acknowledge and action
“Dear [Guest’s Name], thank you for your feedback. We’re truly sorry for the inconvenience you experienced. We have addressed the issue with our housekeeping team to ensure it doesn’t happen again. We appreciate your understanding and hope to welcome you back soon for a better experience.”
Apologise and compensate
“Dear [Guest’s Name], we’re very sorry to hear about your experience. Please accept our sincere apologies. We would like to offer you a discount on your next stay with us. Kindly contact us directly so we can arrange this for you. We hope to have the chance to make it up to you.”
Apologise and thank
“Dear [Guest’s Name], thank you for your feedback. We apologise for the aspects of your stay that did not meet your expectations. Your comments are valuable to us and will help improve our services. We hope to provide you with a much better experience in the future.”
How to respond to positive hotel reviews
The relationship between hotels and guests has dramatically changed over the last few years and this is challenging for the hotels. On the one hand you have OTAs who have taken over the guest ownership. On the other hand, guests today have different expectations. In order to meet those new expectations, hotels have to know their guests better, so they can focus on delivering more personalised experiences.
By exceeding guest expectations and by working to build relationships with guests, even small independent hotels can encourage repeat bookers to book directly with them instead of with an OTA. In order to compete with the OTAs and other hotels, hotels realise they need to start collecting more guest data and use that data in better ways to improve service and build relationships with guests to ensure they return to the hotel.
Whether they’ve had a good experience or a bad one, increasingly-connected consumers are turning to social media and travel review sites to share their opinions to millions of other travellers around the globe. Indeed, the number of customer reviews on the popular TripAdvisor site has surged past the 150 million mark. It’s so important to gain and manage guest feedback.
How to thank hotel guests for their positive feedback
While most organisations are thrilled with the prospect of positive reviews, an abundance of rave reviews can be just as suspicious to audiences as a series of negative reviews.
Therefore, positive reviews also need a response.
- Be Humble
Where a positive review is excessive and perhaps gushing, it is wise for firms to thank the guest for their enthusiasm, but to also acknowledge areas where you are attempting to improve. This reinforces commitment to customer service. - Be Delighted
Where positive feedback is sincere and reasoned, the best response for hotels is to express delight and appreciation for the feedback and the desire to serve again in the future. This is the easiest response to deliver, but is often the least fulfilled. - Be Appreciative
Where feedback is predominantly neutral, but some aspects are highlighted as being of particular value, it is advisable for hotel managers to express thanks for the feedback and to request further advice on how the organisation could improve in specific areas.
Again, try to take this conversation offline with an email or personal phone call. This enables more considered feedback to follow the initial post.
How to respond to positive hotel reviews examples
Be humble
“Dear [Guest’s Name], thank you so much for your enthusiastic review! We’re thrilled to hear you enjoyed your stay with us. We’re continually working on enhancing our services, and your feedback is incredibly valuable to us. We look forward to welcoming you back soon.”
Be delighted
“Dear [Guest’s Name], we’re delighted to hear that you had such a wonderful stay with us! Your kind words mean a lot to our team. We can’t wait to welcome you back for another fantastic experience.”
Be appreciative
“Dear [Guest’s Name], thank you for your review. We’re glad to hear that you enjoyed [specific aspect]. Your feedback is invaluable, and we’d love to hear more about how we can make your next stay even better. Please feel free to reach out to us directly.”
How to prevent negative reviews
Beware the dreaded negative hotel guest review. At your hotel, you’re probably aware that the drama in that statement is not overstated. The sobering reality of managing online reviews and hotel guest feedback is that people who have a bad experience are much more likely to leave a review than those who enjoyed a positive experience.
In fact, it’s said that for every bad hotel guest review you could lose potential bookings.
That’s why it’s vital to understand how a negative review might occur and how to make sure your hotel avoids it at all costs.
Why will a hotel guest leave a negative review?
There are some obvious reasons for guests to give you bad feedback. The good news is that you should be able to solve all of these issues if you take the appropriate action when it comes to reputation management. Here are the main factors contributing to unhappy guests:
Rude or unhelpful staff
Naturally if the hospitality of your hospitality business isn’t up to scratch, it won’t bode well for your reputation online. If guests are greeted by unenthusiastic staff who show no interest in their needs or are hard to find or contact, it will sour their whole experience no matter how amazing your hotel is.
General cleanliness and condition of rooms
It may go without saying but it has happened plenty of times before. If guests enter their room to find it hasn’t been cleaned and last night’s sheets are still on the bed, it might be enough for them to turn and run immediately. It’ll certainly be enough motivation for them to warn their peers about staying at your hotel on travel review sites.
- Unrealistic expectations
Liken this to a balloon being burst. When guests arrive at their destination, excitement is at fever pitch. They can’t wait to see everything they were promised on your website or advertised as ‘highly recommended’ via your online profile. If you’ve promised more than you can deliver in reality, guests will be especially disappointed. Even if nothing is ‘wrong’ with your hotel, nothing is right because you’re giving guests an experience a level below what they believed they purchased.
- A lack of understanding or empathy
Often it’s not what the guest has complained about that’s the issue, it’s the way the problem is resolved by your staff in charge of customer service. Guests will be far more peeved about you being delayed in fixing their broken doorknob than the fact it was broken in the first place. Whatever the ailment, guests want to be heard and taken seriously. If you don’t care about their gripes, they’ll go online to review platforms where they’re sure to find someone who does.
- A play for compensation or reward
Some guests may play a sneaky game of blackmail. Put simply, they expect that if they complain about something they’ll be given compensation or apology gifts. It’s an unhealthy habit some travellers form and it can be very frustrating for hotels – so teach staff how to manage this effectively when explaining your hotel review management system and processes.
How to avoid the bad reviews aimed at your hotel
Most guests will be reasonable and if you make a concerted effort to make things right, bad feedback can be turned into a positive review. Take note of these tips:
1. Don’t shirk on guest experience
Think about when people visit their friends houses for dinners and parties. They get treated according to all their personal preferences and nothing is too much to ask, while the venue had been meticulously prepared to please and entertain.
If you treat every guest like a friend, taking pains to make their stay convenient and personalised in your great location, you should have no problems.
As a minimum, ensure staff are warm, friendly, and available and keep rooms and amenities in impeccable condition.
2. Listen, understand, and connect
As much as you might feel like shrugging off an annoying guests request, it’s important to treat every enquiry with respect. Make sure you’re on the same page as your guest and build a rapport with them. Make it obvious you care about making them happy.
Your verbal language, tone, and body language are all vital here. If a guest brings an issue to your attention it’s important to be act grateful they’ve made you aware and accept any negative feedback as constructive criticism. Then, when you go about resolving the issue, check in with the guest to be sure your solution is to their satisfaction.
3. Be proactive
Instead of waiting until check-out or beyond to ask guests if their stay is up to standard, strike up conversations daily about what they’re enjoying and what could be improved upon. Not only will this give you valuable insight for future guests, but it will show your current customers that you’re working hard to give them the best experience possible.
4. Read and respond to all reviews – both positive or negative
If, heaven forbid, a bad review does crop up on your TripAdvisor page, take a breath before replying. It’s never easy to accept negative feedback and you may be tempted to defend yourself in a reactive manner, but generally it’s better to look at why the comment was made and how you can act on it for the better.
Politely thank every guest for their review and respond specifically to what they have to say. If you’re heartfelt in your response and apologise to the guest, along with whatever recompense you feel is necessary, most guests will give you another chance and be convinced to change their review.
One of the most overarching reasons for bad reviews is frustration. If you can alleviate the potential for this at your hotel, guests will be much happier and your reviews will be largely positive.
How do I get positive hotel reviews?
Getting positive hotel reviews starts (and ends) with delivering exceptional guest experiences.
- Ensure a seamless and personalised experience from booking to check-out.
- Greet guests warmly upon arrival, provide efficient check-in, and ensure their rooms are spotless and comfortable.
- Be attentive to their needs and address any issues promptly.
- Encourage staff to engage with guests and offer local recommendations.
- After their stay, send a follow-up email thanking them and inviting them to share their experience on review platforms like TripAdvisor.
Including direct links to review pages and offering incentives like discounts on future stays can also encourage positive feedback.
Consistently high-quality service and genuine appreciation for your guests will naturally lead to more positive reviews.
Hotel feedback form
Hotel guests read around 6-12 reviews prior to making a booking online, so it can really benefit your hotel’s online reputation (and by proxy, your visibility on review sites) to prioritise driving a greater volume of online reviews.
The best way to do that is to just ask. We’ve seen some hotels verbally encourage guests to write a review at check-out.
You can offer guests a feedback form to fill out, either at checkout or by placing it in every room for each new guest (or both). Once you have these responses you can collate the data and separate what’s useful for your hotel. Take note of what you need to improve on and what you can action.
If you get stellar comments, you could ask guests if it’s okay to publish the feedback on platforms such as your social media.
There’s also a way to do this digitally. There are survey and email systems that can ask guests for feedback shortly after checkout. Some systems then allow for automatic publication for TripAdvisor.
Mirja Wolf,
Manager
Hotel Kragemann
Hotel online review management tips
The relationship between hotels and guests has dramatically changed in recent years, making online reputation more crucial than ever. With most travellers conducting their research and booking online, having a positive web presence is essential for capturing the reservations needed for a successful business. Managing a reputation on websites like TripAdvisor is viewed as the most effective way of generating bookings by over half (54%) of independent hoteliers in the US. For hotels across the US and Europe, online reviews are nearly twice as important as search engine optimisation in influencing booking decisions. This underscores the competitive advantage of effective online reputation management.
Despite its importance, some independent hoteliers still consider online reputation management an indulgence, partly due to confusion about handling feedback online.
TripAdvisor’s Popularity Index is becoming a critical metric for measuring hotel reputation. Beyond this quantitative measure, hotels should also analyse qualitative data to identify trends in guest feedback. For example, if guests consistently complain about the speed of check-in or the quality of the beds, hotels should take steps to address these issues.
Building a successful business and achieving a higher popularity ranking requires paying attention to customers’ needs. Encourage guests to write reviews and learn from their feedback. Each guest should receive an upgrade email before check-in. Additionally, hotels should send upsell emails to promote amenities, request survey responses, and conduct post-stay OTA win-back campaigns and loyalty campaigns. Personalising these emails and segmenting guest databases ensure that all communications are relevant to the audience. Collecting guest data is crucial for this personalised approach. When customers feel they’re receiving great value, they’re more likely to share their positive experiences online.
However, perks and rewards should complement excellent customer service, not replace it. High guest satisfaction throughout their stay is essential; otherwise, a rewards program may feel like a bribe and won’t be enough to garner positive reviews or encourage return stays.
To ensure your hotel stays on the right side of best practice, follow these nine recommendations:
- Transparency: Be clear about where reviews come from and how they are checked before publishing.
- Honesty: Publish all reviews, including negative ones, provided they are genuine and lawful.
- Clarity: Explain to guests the circumstances in which reviews might not be published or might be edited (e.g., if they include swearing, abusive language, or defamatory remarks).
- Timeliness: Ensure there is no unreasonable delay before reviews are published, so guests get the current picture.
- Disclosure: Disclose commercial relationships with businesses that appear on your site and explain how this may affect review ratings.
- Detection: Have procedures to detect and remove fake reviews, and act promptly on reports of suspected fake reviews.
- Integrity: Don’t offer inducements—money or gifts—to customers to write positive reviews about your hotel.
- Authenticity: Don’t pretend to be a guest and write reviews about your hotel or other hotels, nor pay others to do so.
- Transparency in Endorsements: If someone who publishes content accepts payment to endorse something, ensure the content is clearly identifiable as paid-for, such as labelling posts or videos as “advertisement feature” or “advertisement promotion.”
By adhering to these best practices, your hotel can maintain a trustworthy and positive online presence, encouraging guests to share their genuine experiences and enhancing the hotel’s reputation. This strategy helps independent hotels leverage their flexibility to create exceptional guest experiences, leading to better online reviews and a stronger competitive position in the market.
