There are many things that influence a hotel’s reputation and overall success. While being on top of every single one can easily become overwhelming, the good news is that all aspects of a hotel experience can easily be analyzed through guest feedback. The way travelers rate different categories, amenities, or services has a significant impact on a hotel’s overall score. Especially during these times of crisis, travelers rely heavily on the opinion of previous guests when making a booking decision and are more likely to judge the hotel stay through a different, more selective and cautious perspective.
Enter the Impact Scores. Fueled by TrustYou’s semantic analysis of online reviews, which measure hotel reputation in different predefined semantic categories (management, housekeeping, WiFi, bathrooms, friendliness, etc.), the Impact Scores are the foundation for estimating the impact that, for example, bathroom cleanliness has on the overall performance score in a particular time range, to which all scores in all categories contribute. You can read more about the value and calculation of the Impact Scores in this article.
Given the current context in travel and hospitality, we wanted to dive deeper into the insights that guest feedback provides and see exactly which Impact Scores are the most notable during the months of crisis – from the beginning of 2020 until the month of August. We have extracted from our database the top 3 positive and negative impact scores, both on a global and a regional scale, in order to enable hoteliers to understand what is impacting their score and performance the most. Here is what we found:
– For most regions, service and service friendliness are in the top 3 positive Impact Scores, meaning that travelers appreciate the way in which the hotel staff interacts with them and see this aspect of their hotel stay as extremely impactful.
– Management is also one of the most poignant positive Impact Scores, especially in the APAC region and in Japan, where the way in which the hotel is being run is noted and rated by guests.
– On the negative side of things, room cleanliness, room maintenance, and bathroom cleanliness are the most frequent negative Impact Scores, both on a global and a regional level. That goes to show that the 2020 traveler pays extra attention to the levels of hygiene and cleanliness encountered in their hotel room and bathroom and that, unfortunately, most hotels are still falling short when ensuring trust in those categories.
It’s important during these challenging times to acknowledge and understand the changes that are happening in the traveler’s behavior, expectations, and needs because they will ultimately reflect in the hotel’s performance and reputation. The post COVID-19 traveler is bound to be more cautious and preoccupied with safety and cleanliness, so every mistake in those areas will be immediately noticed and penalized. Hoteliers need to constantly be on top of their reputation and the ongoing feedback in order to identify issues and solve them accordingly, as well as to keep an edge over the competition. The TrustYou Impact Scorea are a great way of assessing a hotel’s performance in a granular way and they help pinpoint the exact categories that are contributing to a great reputation or, on the contrary, the ones that need improvement or future investments.
In order to get a better understanding of Impact Scores and the Reputation Management feature of the TrustYou platform, make sure to check out this video. Also, we have recently developed the Trusted Cleanliness Badge in order to help hoteliers promote their stringent hygiene standards and ensure trust in those categories. You can find more information about the badge here.