Online reviews are regarded by many hoteliers with some suspicion, a common assumption is that these are simply avenues by which disgruntled customers do their level best to demolish an establishment’s hard-won reputation. The dispelling of this notion is just one of the conclusions of the Revinate 2014 Hotel Benchmarking Report. It finds that contrary to the belief that online reviews consist mainly of gripes, the positive reviews “vastly outweigh” negative ones. “The key for hoteliers is to amplify the positive ones and resolve the negative reviews,” it adds. Such a finding ought to be enough on its own to make hoteliers rethink their views on review sites.
Rather than dismissing them as repositories for the terminally miserable to let off steam, hoteliers will need to use what they can read about their establishments to help build their reputation, as well as correct those issues that do arise. The survey also noted that most of the reviews are spread across a very small number of particularly prominent sites, with 70 per cent of them being recorded on Booking.com, TripAdvisor and Hotels.com. However, Revinate has advised that management should take notice of reviews across a wide range of sites, in order to get as much useful information and feedback as they can.
Hotels at the top end of the market should be paying the most attention, as four and five-star hotels attract 75 per cent of reviews, while by contrast, one and two-star establishments only feature in ten per cent. That would suggest that expectations are higher for the hotels with more stars and thus guests may be more willing to say whether they were fulfilled or not. The report emphasised that benchmarks offer a clear method of assessing a hotel’s performance against the competition. It noted that a survey of Revinate customers carried out last year showed those hotels with set goals outperformed those that did not have them. By taking into account the information benchmarking provides, it noted, hotels can establish just what sort of standards they need to achieve in order to keep up with the strongest competition.
Furthermore, the report cited a study by Cornell University that showed there is a correlation between the number of bookings and positive reviews. It also found that those who want to raise their rates are better able to do so while retaining high booking numbers if their reviews are positive. So for hoteliers, it seems ignoring reviews is just not an option.
