Online reputation: how is your hotel doing?

We know that tourism is an extremely competitive sector, and a hotel’s online reputation is certainly a key factor.

There are several points which can make a clear difference to this reputation. We’ve analysed the online reputation of 26,254 hotels across the world, based on 12,110,969 online reviews, and obtained some very interesting findings.

What is the benchmark?

You should always refer to the average score: you want to avoid falling below this at all costs, but are sure to have a competitive advantage if you exceed it.
The average satisfaction rate is 84.35% if we take into account the big portals (Booking.com, TripAdvisor, Google, Facebook and HolidayCheck) and the reviews that we at Customer Alliance have gathered from our 5000+ clients.
Here is a more detailed breakdown showing the average score on each platform:

TripAdvisor: 84.24%
Google: 84.09%
Facebook: 91.75%
Booking.com: 83.32%
HolidayCheck: 87.48%
Customer Alliance: 88.14%

It’s interesting to note that the highest average score was recorded on Facebook, the social network created by Mark Zuckerberg who has gained popularity in the tourism sector over the past few years.

How many reviews are written a month?

Around one million reviews are posted each month, or 1,009,247 to be precise. If we take the big portals into account, we notice some rather pronounced differences. More precisely, here is the number of online reviews each platform receives on a monthly basis:

TripAdvisor: 139334
Google: 183558
Facebook: 50643
Booking.com: 561862
HolidayCheck: 20242
Customer Alliance: 53609

Booking.com is clearly the biggest player in this category. The online booking giant lists 1,683,037 establishments worldwide and has gathered more than 146 million comments!
In second place, with 183558 online reviews, is Google, having overtaken TripAdvisor, a well-known platform in the world of online reviews but which takes third place in the list with 139334 monthly reviews.

How many client reviews get a reply?

This depends on the platform. For example, in this specific case, TripAdvisor is top with an average of 51.55% of hotel owners responding to comments left online by their clients. The response rates for HolidayCheck and Booking.com are 36.61% and 26.01% respectively.
Overall, the average response rate for hotel owners to clients stands at 29.79%.

Although it is very difficult, if not impossible, to respond to every client review, we recommend that you always keep a close eye on the reviews you receive and reply to the most important ones, as this can have a positive impact on your hotel’s online reputation.
Above all, we advise that you always respond to any negative reviews, and we say this for two reasons. Firstly, complaints are very often due to a simple misunderstanding, which it is always wise to clear up. And secondly, an adverse review can be turned into an excellent marketing tool that can be used in your hotel’s favour. We explain this in more detail in this guide: how to better manage criticism from your clients.

Who has the best and worst hotels?

With regard to the highest score, hotels in Poland dominate over their European neighbours, receiving an average CSI (Customer Satisfaction Index) score of 87.33%. They are followed by those from German-speaking regions (Germany, Austria and Switzerland), which record an average score of 86.35%.
French hotels have an average score of 85.89%, Italy is just behind with 85.78% and hotels in Spain hold a score of 85.42%. Note that all these scores are above the general average mentioned earlier.
The highest overall score across all platforms is 92.76%, awarded to hotels in Poland on Facebook, while the worst is the average score awarded on TripAdvisor for accommodation in Spain, at just 79.49%.

The highest response rate also goes to hotels in Poland, who reply to 64% of comments left by their clients on TripAdvisor; this places them well above the average score. It is French hotel owners who respond to the most reviews left on Booking.com, with an average of 29.88%, that is almost 4% more than the general average which stands at 26.01%.
Those who are generally most likely to respond to client criticism are Polish hotel owners, with an average of 35.44%. The least responsive are those in Italy (29.02%) and Spain (24.28%).

To conclude…

Because all of this data is based on an average, it would not be appropriate to make any generalisations about the online reputation of all the hotels in the world. There are just too many differences between them.
That said, by adhering to good practices linked to managing your online reputation, as well as using a solution like Customer Alliance, you will see progressive improvements in your hotel’s reputation.
Ask for a free consultation with our experts and you will no longer miss out on a review!