First Quarter Trends In Global Hotel Reviews

We’ve taken a look at a random sample of more than 6 million hotels reviews across North America, Asia Pacific and Europe, the Middle East and Africa to see what travelers had to say during the first quarter of 2014. The findings? Travelers enjoy better service compared to a year ago in Asia Pacific (APAC) and Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), better food was the star in North America and Internet/Wi-Fi was a global source for complaints. The full reports are available for free download here.

Many destinations throughout APAC and EMEA saw an improvement in hotel Service Scores. Popular leisure tourism destination, Malé (in the Maldives), for example, which reported an 11.6% increase in incoming tourists for the first two months of 2014, saw improvements in overall review scores (+3.3%), traveler satisfaction with rooms (+19.0%) and service (+4.7%). These were some of the biggest improvements in the aforementioned categories analyzed among all major markets in the reports.

Other destinations followed different patterns. While travelers were typically more content with service compared to a year ago in APAC and EMEA, there appeared to be some confusion about what to expect from the room and/or food and beverage offerings in many major markets throughout these regions. Markets including Berlin, Cape Town, Auckland and Taipei improved service from a year ago, but travelers were less satisfied with both their rooms and food.

Conversely, in North America, travelers tended to be content with food, but less impressed with service compared to last year. In Chicago, Los Angeles and New York, for example, travelers gave food higher scores, with improvements ranging from +1.2% to +3.8%, while service scores declined between -0.4% to -1.7%.

Get all the insights here.