Amount of online reviews affects the rating

Top of the world!

TripAdvisor gave out the popular Travelers’ Choice Award to the creme de la creme of the hotel industry. The Travelers’ Choice Award is an audience award, as it takes into account the reviews of travelers from the travel platform. In the category “top hotel” of the world Hotel Kronenhof from Switzerland won the first place, followed by The Upper House, Hong Kong, China and the Maldives Soneva Gili by Six, Lankanfushi, Maldives .

Which bearing does the number of reviews have on the ratings of a hotel?

In a last year study, Cornell University analyzed the influence of the number of reviews on hotels’ ratings. The key points of this study were summarized by Ehotelier.com in an article last week.

# 1: The early reviews of a hotel tend to be more critical and negative

The rating of a hotel with 11 to 20 reviews averages at 3.5 points. Especially in the early days on review platforms reviews tend to be more critical, with 12 % of the reviews being 1 point reviews. The reason for this predominantly negative feedback is according to the study the lack of information about the hotel property. Guests have expectations up on arrival and if these can not be met, they leave the hotel disappointed. However, you should not view this negative feedback as a nuisance, but more as an opportunity to improve your services.

What can you do to get more reviews?

Animate your guests to leave you a review. Post-stay e-mails with links to the relevant review portals where you want to gain more reviews are well suited. With our Review Analytics software you can also link your own questionnaire with the post-stay e-mail.

# 2 As the number of reviews increases, so does the rating

The survey also found out that the more reviews a hotel has, the better gets the average rating. Hotels with 101 reviews and more improved their rating from 3.5 to 3.9 at an average. The number of 1 point reviews was halved, while 5 point reviews doubled.

Comment on your guest reviews

Keep in mind that your guest has taken some of his precious time to review you. He may have told you what he cherished about your hotel or he maybe even told you what he did not like so much. So you should also take the time to reply. Ideally you would post a public comment visible to new customers and also send out a personalized e-mail as direct communication only between you and your guest. You will notice, that this kind of interaction will also make unhappy guests alot happier. It is important that you give the guest a sincere and an authentic response to the criticisms. For further reading, we suggest our whitepaper complaint management, a practical guide with tips for dealing with negative reviews.

# 3 More reviews imply a more accurate and realistic rating

The more reviews you collect, the more they will approach to your average rating. The reviews will draw a more accurate and realistic picture and reflect the opinion of the majority of travellers.

Analyze your reviews

Recognize early trends, both in absolute terms and in relation to your competitors. The automated analysis in our Review Analytics software will show through trend arrows, in which categories you need to improve and where you and your team are already doing a great job. In addition, our semantic analysis evaluates the comments of your guests regarding the choice of words. That way you can identify strengths and weaknesses even better.

# 4 Hallelujah! – Positive reviews outweigh negative ones

In the study a total of 1.28 million reviews were examined on TripAdvisor, the largest part (70 %) had a rating of 4 or 5 points. Only 15% were 1 or 2 point reviews and clearly in the minority.

Therefor the fear of negative reviews is completely unfounded
Sure, you ‘ll never be able to please everyone. Not being everyone’s darling can also be part of a successful strategy as you will attract guests you want to attract. You can avoid the “wrong” guests visiting your hotel by providing travellers feedback prominently on your website. Our Review Analytics provides a variety of different widgets for your website.

Source: ” Online Customer Reviews of Hotels : Ace Participation Increases , Better Evaluation Is Obtained . ”

Via : ehotelier