In today’s hotel industry, checking online reviews has become a daily task in the operations of the modern day hotelier. However, more often than not, hoteliers are asking the wrong questions in regards to their ranking on these sites. They ask, “who is ranked higher than me?” and “who is ranked below me?” Many feel that their place in the ranking is out of their control.

What they should be asking is not who, but how. “How is this property ranking higher than me?” and “how am I ranking higher than my competition?” These are the questions that focus on what really matters: the reviews.

The Fuel that Drives Ranking

Just like any well-oiled machine, a vehicle needs fuel in order for it to get where it is going. Online reputation is no different. And if the #1 spot on TripAdvisor is the final destination, we will need fuel in order to get there. Now, unfortunately, TripAdvisor does not fully reveal the secret formula needed to achieve reputation market supremacy, but it does give us a few factors:

• Quality: the star rating associated with the review
• Quantity: the number of reviews you have been able to capture from travelers
• Recency: how new the reviews are
• Performance Over Time: the consistency of quality and quantity over the entire lifetime of the hotel

When Hotels Spin Their Wheels

Sometimes, a hotelier will see that they’re earning more and better reviews than before, but their ranking isn’t budging. Or worse, they’re slipping through the rankings. If they’re earning 4- and 5-star reviews, why are they falling behind? The key is to look at their competitors.

Let’s say that your hotel earned 10 positive reviews, 3 neutral reviews, and 1 negative review in a month. Your closest competitor earned 15 positive reviews, 1 neutral review, and 0 negative reviews. Even though you had overwhelmingly positive feedback that month, your competitor might move ahead of you. Now, if this trend continues over months and years, it’s easy to see how your well-performing hotel can still fall behind.

It’s Time for a Reputation Tune-Up

You know that moving up in the rankings can directly impact the number of bookings you get to your hotel and the revenue you’ll earn. So how can you move up in the race?

Use Tracking Analytics to Keep Pace

• Use tracking tools and analytics to determine where you need to focus your efforts – whether reducing negative reviews, increasing positive reviews, or both
• Find out how many reviews your competitors are earning and make a plan to outpace them

Increase Review Flow

• Put a post-stay email strategy in place to gain more positive feedback to review sites
• Proactively ask guests for feedback during and after their stay

Use Sentiment Analysis from Reviews to Find Opportunities

• Make smart decisions at the property based on what actually impacts guest feedback
• Continually make improvements to get higher review scores

Learn more about our Reputation Management solution, including post-stay emails, sentiment analysis technology, and review management.