Some new information has come from Brian Payea at Trip Advisor - the percentage of reviews written for each of their five categories. Trip Advisor calls them “owls”, but every hotelier I’ve talked to refers to them as stars.
Some interesting insights – over 40% of the reviewers give hotels a 5.0 rating! Another 27% give a 4.0 rating. So two-thirds of all Trip Advisor reviews are a 4.0 or better!
The average of all reviews 3.74.
So if you’re a general manager or hotel owner and you’re feeling comfortable with your 4.0 rating think about this – your hotel is performing only slightly above average!
Guests have taken control of the hotel customer satisfaction survey. Among leisure travelers 64% read comments and reviews written by past guests – only 38% use professionally written reviews. Ouch!
It may be time to establish a pro-active Internet content management program. Hotels with the greatest number and most favorable reviews are way ahead of competitiors in the all important (electronic) word-of-mouth marketing arena. They are also more likely to be running proactive programs designed to encourage positive guests reviews and manage unfavorable ones.
What are you doing to manage the online guest dialog and increase your Trip Advisor “star rating”?
