To uncover the secret behind hospitality businesses’ online reviews and ratings and find out how much impact cleanliness actually has on a guest’s willingness to leave positive reviews and recommend online, P&G Professional has teamed up with world’s largest hotel search site, trivago, to launch its ‘Top Rated’ campaign.
According to the data collected, an increase of a one star rating for cleanliness is likely to increase the overall rating of a hotel by up to one star, impacting booking numbers and revenues.
The collected data has also shown that 61 per cent of customers read online reviews before making e-commerce purchasing decision, which in practice means the prospective guest’s very first impression of a hotel is likely to be the opinion of a previous guest read online.
To add to this, results from trivago’s Quality Test, a mystery guest programme in which real guests receive a cash incentive for filling in a detailed questionnaire regarding their stay, shows that 78 per cent of guests expect an ‘above average’ level of cleanliness.
If they rate a hotel as clean, they are more likely to give the hotel a high rating overall, therefore cleanliness standards should be considered as especially important as ‘above average’ standard is something guests are immediately looking for.
While it is generally understood and expected that good online ratings boost the number of stays, the combined research clearly outlines that cleanliness is a crucial factor in securing positive recommendations and reviews online.
In fact, P&G Professional’s research shows that an increase of one star rating in cleanliness is likely to increase the overall rating by up to one star. To put that in a revenue context, if a hospitality business increases its review scores by one star on a total rating of five stars, a hotel can increase its price by 11.2 per cent and still maintain the same occupancy or market share.
Denise Bartlett, UK public relations manager at trivago, said: “trivago recognises strong online content as one of the most important features of a successful hotel search – which includes accurate, comprehensive and unbiased reviews. We believe a hotel’s reputation should be based on qualitative and extensive data about the hotel’s best strengths. As feedback from our Quality Test showed, the cleanliness of a hotel plays a key factor in guests’ retention and can positively impact a hotel’s online reputation. A good online presence is key in this industry, which is why we support the Top Rated campaign and hope hoteliers from around the world will welcome these findings".
To sum up, great cleaning ensures great reputation and great business.
