Travel Review Data: What Hotels Can Do With It

A recent TripAdvisor report indicates that 60% of hotels are increasing their investment in online reputation management in 2015. What this means is more oversight, better responses, improved technology, and a whole lot of data. But what makes this data all worthwhile is how it’s used. What can hotels do with all of this data to ensure that this substantial investment in reputation management pays off?

At the end of the day, data is only useful if it’s used to make improvements, such as:

  • tracking travel data in a way that highlights where training is needed for underperforming departments as well as where acknowledgement is due for superior performance;
  • using traveler feedback to improve the guest experience;
  • employing surveys to ensure the right information is being gathered;
  • and marketing the feedback.

Even minor adjustments can exponentially improve guest experience, which means review ratings and sentiments will increase. Research shows this leads not only to an increased likelihood of bookings but also to potentially higher room rates. With this in mind, here are five key travel review metrics and how to use them for change within your organization.

1. Overall Review Performance Scores

A hotel or portfolio can quickly measure success by Performance Scores. Performance Scores include scores from all reviews worldwide and are helpful in determining trends, pinpointing top performing hotels in a portfolio, and understanding how a hotel/brand stacks up to a competitive set.

Ihr Hotel

Competitor A

Competitor B

Performance

86

93

91

Year Ago

89

90

89

Here it is easy to see that your hotel receives scores that are just below that of the competition. Furthermore, your scores have dropped slightly from a year ago, while the competition is on the rise. This trend in performance score is the first indication that your property isn’t staying competitive and requires a deeper dive to determine where improvements need to happen.

2. Recommendation Rates

Recommendation rates signify whether or not guests plan to return to your hotel. These stats can easily be tracked using guest satisfaction surveys. The higher the recommendation rate, the more likely a guest is to become a repeat guest. Dropping recommendation rates indicate a problem.

Ihr Hotel

Recommendation Rate

81%

Year Ago

95%

Uh-oh. Time for a change!

3. Sentiment Scores

Scores for key sentiment categories are useful in understanding what is driving overall scores so that you know where to invest in improvements. Below is an example of some key categories that travelers consider when making booking decisions. TrustYou analyzes 120+ semantic categories.

Ihr Hotel

Competitor A

Competitor B

Food

78

82

77

Internet

79

55

49

Price/Value

60

55

59

Room

70

82

75

Service

82

89

80

From the above data, it’s clear that your hotel has some areas for improvement to catch up to competitor A. Service, room, and food offerings, for example, could all use some attention. Internet and price/value, however, outperform the competitors, suggesting that these aspects could be marketed as key selling points to potential new guests.

Need further information to understand exactly what to improve within each category? Review snippets have the answers. Let’s look at some snippets for the sentiment category “Room”:

“my room was not properly air conditioned”

“the room wasn’t very clean”

“there was dust in the room”

 

For this property, room maintenance and cleanliness are the areas on which to focus to improve scores.

4. Management Response Rates

Management response rates may seem to some hotels like a softer metric to track, but they are incredibly important. Research shows that hotels that respond to reviews average 6% higher review scores than those that do not. Plus, by replying to reviews, you show guests that you care about their feedback, encouraging significantly more reviews, which impacts your rankings and visibility.

(P.S. –> Having trouble crafting a response? Download this simple guide!)

5. Social Media Scores/Reviews

Some hotels distinguish between what travelers are saying on travel review platforms (TripAdvisor, etc.) versus what they are saying on social networks (Facebook, Twitter, etc.). Both are important sources for feedback. Your scores and volume of engagement on key social networks will give you an idea of how well you are performing in the social space. Plus, Facebook reviews offer an opportunity to leverage what guests are saying to improve your overall scores. (Learn about how Mövenpick is doing this here.)

Around 80% of hotel respondents in the TripBarometer said that increasing repeat guests is important in 2015. Meeting this goal requires not only investing in reputation management, but also knowing exactly what do with the results.

Are you ready to start using travel review data for true change in your organization? Do you need help tracking these important KPIs? TrustYou works with thousands of hotels and brands – small and large, cookie-cutter and unique – to track these metrics and ultimately to help these companies improve the travel experience for their guests. Get in touch with us here for a demo.  

Catalina Brinza

Catalina is a social media and data enthusiast. At TrustYou, she's on a mission to bring the most out of travel and hospitality data. One day, she hopes to experience Japan's culture to its fullest.

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