Cleanliness key to 'top rated' online hotel reviews

P&G Professional, the away-from-home cleaning arm of Procter & Gamble, has teamed up with trivago, the world's largest hotel search site, to unravel the mystery behind online reviews and determine how much impact cleanliness actually has on a guest's willingness to positively review and recommend.

Data illustrates that 61% [1] of customers read online reviews before making e-commerce purchasing decision, which in practice means it's likely the very first impression a prospective guest has of a hotel is the opinion of a previous guest.

Additionally, results from trivago's Quality Test [2], a mystery guest programme in which real guests receive a cash incentive for filling in a detailed questionnaire regarding their stay, shows that 78% of guests expect an 'above average' level of cleanliness and that if they rate a hotel as clean, they are more likely to give the hotel a high rating overall [3].

So while it is commonly understood that good online ratings boost the number of stays, the combined data clearly outlines that cleanliness is a crucial factor in securing positive recommendations and reviews. 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 [4]. 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% and still maintain the same occupancy or market share [5].

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.”

www.pgpro.co.uk
www.trivago.co.uk/hotelmanager/qualitytest

[1] Data published by TrustPilot UK, 2015. Link to report: https://content.trustpilot.com/trustpowered/assets/img/Final-TrustPowereGuide.pdf
[2] Data was collected from trivago's Quality Test - results are taken from over 4000 questionnaires completed over the past two years.
[3] In the questionnaire, guests are asked to rate the hotel, amenities, services etc. There are five options: strongly below average, somewhat below average, average, somewhat above average, strongly above average. Higher rated hotels would fall in the top two categories.
[4] Data collected via online analysis of 5930 UK hotels, and more than 2.5 million online reviews. Research commissioned by P&G Professional and conducted by Reputami Data Services in November-December 2014.
[5] The Impact of Social Media in Lodging Performance, Chris Anderson Ph.D, Cornell Hospitality Report, November 2012. Link to the report: http://scholarship.sha.cornell.edu/chrpubs/5/