EMEA hoteliers: Benchmark your reputation management game against your competitors

Why is it important to gather guests’ review scores and respond to these? Guest reviews and their scores are crucial to the decision making process especially at the beginning of the research and booking journey.

And when guests do leave a review, hoteliers’ responses indicate that they are listening to feedback. Most hoteliers forget that responding to positive reviews, though not as urgent as responding to negative reviews, is just as important. Learn more about best practices and find examples of review responses in our Guest Feedback course.

2. Staff shortage continues to be a challenge for the industry – automation is key

Staff shortage was a major challenge in 2021, we can expect this to continue in 2022

TAKEAWAY: Invest in technology and automate. With Revinate, hoteliers can automatically syndicate guest feedback to Booking.com and other online sites. Reviews by other guests are crucial to booking decisions and the more reviews you have, the easier it would be to drive direct revenue. This is what Hotel Welcome Inn, Zurich, Switzerland implemented – seeing an increase of 170% in survey volume year on year. They also drove up their TripAdvisor reviews by 62%.

3. Some countries are experiencing slow recovery — use this time to build your reputation

Some cities in Europe, such as cities in Benelux rely more on international tourists. Their recovery consequently is slower. However, since we are seeing an increase in online bookings for hotel stays and a market trend of increase in online testimonials.

TAKEAWAY: Get as many reviews as you can to build up your reputation from your current guests. When the market is back and recovery accelerates with international travelers, future guests will be able to take the reviews into booking consideration. And if you respond to the reviews promptly, they will be able to see the proactivity and improvements from your property.

4. The future is bright! Recovery profit is real

The numbers don’t lie. UKI and Poland are leading the hotel recovery in Europe in 2022, with rates now back to more than 80% of pre-Covid levels. MEA shows that profit recovery surpassing 2019 levels is real. 2021 GOPPAR indexed to 2019, was 129% in December 2021.

TAKEAWAY: People are keen to travel again, and 2022 has started strongly. If you haven’t already, this is the time to include Guest Feedback in your marketing strategy. Plenty of global Revinate customers scaled up their Guest Feedback strategy during COVID and received positive results that prepared them for recovery. See the results Inn at Northrup Station and Aqua Aston achieved by doing so.

Find all of this and more in our new Reputation Benchmark Report  2021. View now.