Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio.

Ryan Embree:
Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check-in, and we check out what’s trending in hotel marketing. I’m your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, as always, Ryan Embree. Thank you so much for joining us today, wherever you’re listening from or viewing us from on our YouTube page. We are here in our content creation studio at Travel Media Group headquarters just north of Orlando. And I am here with a very familiar guest and voice, Mr. Jason Lee, our Chief Technology Officer at Travel Media Group. Jason, welcome back to the Suite Spot.

Jason Lee:
Thank you for having me.

Ryan Embree:
We got a very exciting episode for you today. Memorial Day just passed. We saw the record breaking numbers, pre pandemic levels of travel. I’m sure a lot of hotel listeners are very excited to hear that. It’s looking like it’s gonna be an even bigger summer, which we’re gonna talk about. But today what we’re gonna be doing is we’re gonna be looking at all of that feedback that guests left us over this spring, and hopefully what this is gonna do is give us some insights, and some takeaways that we can use in these summer months to potentially leverage our marketing and increase our chance of conversion, which is what every hotelier should be doing. Since this is a sales and marketing podcast, we love to do that for you. But Jason, take us through first, what is this data that we’re seeing and why is it more accurate than, let’s say, a survey of just like a thousand travelers?

Jason Lee:
So what we do is we use natural language processing to pull out like key pieces of information. So it’s traveler sentiment, so how they’re feeling about these various items. So you could have people that are both happy and upset in the same review, based on categories. So we start this, we start this whole thing with category. So we look at a bunch of different tags inside of room category, inside of a facilities category, inside of a service category. And then further past that we look at the various aspects of those tags. So I’ll just give you an example. So an example would be a room, it would be bed, right? So room would be the category. The tag would be bed. The aspects of that tag would be sheets, pillows, sleep quality. It could be all of these other pieces that, so many factors, Yeah. That make up this stuff. And so, so we extract that data from each, review that comes in regardless of so completely agnostic of the rating of the review, just looking at the actual information that comes from the text.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah, and that’s something that, that we preach to our hotel partners is just because you have a five star review or a one star review on the other side, doesn’t mean there’s both positive, neutral and negative elements to that review. Absolutely. And what this is doing, and this is pulling out all of that sentiment, it’s over a lot of data, which we’re gonna share in a second, these incredible numbers. And then what we’re doing here is trying to extrapolate that data, trying to find some trends, patterns and insights, that you, the hotel listener can potentially use. So give us some of those numbers. I mean, again, we’re not just talking about a thousand travelers. We’re talking about every public review online. Correct. And the feedback within that, that’s gotta be, yeah, that’s gotta be a huge amount.

Jason Lee:
Yeah. So, so you’re talking about a little over 60,000 hotels and all of their reviews. So in, in those last three months we’re just a little over 3 million reviews that came in from that, and then from those about 7.5 million individual pieces of sentiment

Ryan Embree:
Just in the spring, which is yes, is absolutely, incredible to think about and very curious to see what those numbers might look like as we get into the busy travel season. But what we’re gonna talk about today is we’re gonna talk about some of those patterns and trends, right? And I think first of all, it’s very fascinating that you said 3 million reviews, 7 million tags, right? because that, that looks like kind of like a 2:1 ratio as far as the aspects, but one of the places that you found has a little bit more of those elements is the first place we’re gonna talk about TripAdvisor and 64 of review sentiment on TripAdvisor, was positive. Now this was the most positive out of the big four, as we like to call it, right? Yeah. Google, Booking, Expedia and TripAdvisor, those are, those are your main review sites. But TripAdvisor is still, I would say, one of the most trusted places for, for guest feedback on that.

Jason Lee:
Absolutely. And I, and I think we see that, we see high number of individual sentiment pieces per review because of the character limitation or the character limit that they impose on the traveler. So you have to meet a minimum number of characters. So you’re always gonna have a longer review on TripAdvisor. And so there’s just more data to look at, more text to look at. But on the same note, even though it has more sentiment per review, they have the least amount of total sentiment because, or one of the lowest at 18% because of just the quantities of reviews that come in for TripAdvisor are much lower. Yes. So you compare that at 33, you know, almost 34% for Booking.com, in the same, you know, in the same thing, which is like, there’s a, that’s a pretty big, you know, change. Yes. You know, and but it also has to do with the difference between soliciting a review that Booking.com does with each guest and just sort of waiting for reviews to come in with TripAdvisor, where, where you sort of just get them as they come. And we’re seeing really low numbers. I mean, you know, in total reviews, so this isn’t even sentiment. It’s at 18% in total reviews. TripAdvisor is, you know, just above 11%.

Ryan Embree:
And it’s those hoteliers that, that proactively have a strategy to get more, generate more feedback on TripAdvisor, we just talked about it. We still feel as travelers, TripAdvisor, if you want the most accurate information. And it really is in correlation with that customer count. TripAdvisor has made it known that they’re not looking for volume of reviews, right? They’re looking for quality of reviews. They want the, they want to be the most trusted site out there. So hoteliers that have a proactive strategy to get more reviews on TripAdvisor, is really gonna serve them in the long run. And seeing something like this, you would think going to TripAdvisor, a lot of hotels think, well, that’s just a place a space where these guests complain. Yeah. But in seeing this data, there’s actually, this is the, the highest percentage of positive feedback. Yeah. What I would say to a hotel you there is if you’re not seeing that positive sentiment on TripAdvisor look out because on your other sites you might be in trouble.

Jason Lee:
I think what’s interesting again, is that TripAdvisor again is sort of this open text box. So it’s like, give me, give me the experience. Yeah. Tell me what, tell me what happened and give me as much detail as possible where you look at Booking.com where I’m asking you for this feedback, but I’m also asking for both sides of the feedback with Booking.com. I’m asking you for the positive aspects of your stay. And I’m also asking for the negative aspects of your stay. So when you look at the Booking.com data, you’re looking at like almost a 50/50 between positive sentiment and neutral negative. Yeah. So, so it’s a very interesting thing and it’s one of the only sites that has that where, where you see that, that kind of like the polarity, you know, by review.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. It, it’s interesting. We, we use the analogy a lot of, you know, imagining asking that guest across the front desk at checkout, you know, how was your experience in that? Their answer being that same thing that you’re reading on a review site. And I don’t know if a lot of hotelier are asking that follow up if they’re like, I had a great stay, you know, saying, Hey, but what did you not like about this hotel? Right. Definitely some, some interesting insights asking that question.

Jason Lee:
But, I also feel like that’s where sentiment data is the most important. Yes. Because you look at a 10 out of 10, like you said earlier, you could have a, you could have a high rating, but the, the data might not show that. So, and it’s not even, it’s a, you know, you obviously you want high, high rated review, but on Booking.com routinely, you see, you know, a 10 out of 10 or a 9 out of 10, but there is something negative mentioned. So, so it doesn’t, it’s not, it doesn’t look like what sentiment looks like at a 50/50.

Ryan Embree:
Definitely. Fascinating stuff. Now, let’s get into the tags, right? Because we had talked about where guests are leaving the feedback, what are they actually talking about? In the second most talked about sentiment topic that we analyzed over 25 different aspects. Number one was accommodations, right? What do we do in hotels, right? We provide accommodations and lodging for, for our guests. I don’t know if that one’s ever gonna change and not and be knocked off, but number two was staffing. And this is so interesting because we are still feeling the impacts of these headwinds when it comes to really the staffing crisis that we’re having in hospitality right now. So what does this tell you that this is being the second most talked about topic on online review sites?

Jason Lee:
You know, I think it’s, I think it’s just people experiencing, you know, other people. So I don’t, and it’s not necessarily deficits in staffing, you know, it’s, it’s coming in at 70% positive on sentiment. So it’s, it’s about their experiences they’re having with staff. But I also think it’s sort of people traveling for the first time. Like you were saying, I think it’s still, we’re still kind of in post pandemic. I know everybody hates to think of it that way, but if you think of it from a traveler’s perspective, they’re still travelers coming and traveling for the first time and experiencing things that are very different now than they were before. And that could be that now all of a sudden I’m, I’m being asked if I, if I want to have maid service, or if I do, I need to request it daily. You know, so I have something very different going on with my relationship with the front desk possibly. But I also think that, you know, during the, the staffing shortage, they’ve economized a bunch of different things like checking in, you know, so various aspects of the stay are now could be automated. And so that also presents a different experience with staff.

Ryan Embree:
And that’s a hot topic right now, right? Like, what are we seeing in our industry? All the articles being written, it’s all about ChatGPT, technology still integrating into the guest experience at a hotel. But the data shows us right now that the second most talked about is still staff. Yeah. This is a people serving people industry. This is what the core of it is. Yes, there might be some really cool innovations that we’re doing with implementing mobile check-in and more people more than ever taking, advantage of this technology. But at the end of the day, what are they talking about? They’re talking about the staff. I think it’s very important and critical to keep in mind when you’re listening to this of how you handle your staff, how you’re recruiting. It’s still having a major, major impact on the guest experience right now. Let’s get into number three. This was cleanliness. Cleanliness was mentioned positively 77% of the time, this is the highest percentage of any topic analyzed. Now for me, this shows me over the last couple years we had to take so much time, effort, and investment into our cleanliness protocols to make sure that our guests felt safe about travel. That they had peace of mind when coming out of their homes, out into, you know, this, this post pandemic world. This is paying off either, the expectations have changed around cleanliness or, the protocols in place or the investments that we’ve put in have been sticking around because this is a great stat to see that people are still feeling like the hotel experience is more than not very clean.

Jason Lee:
Yeah, no, I, I think it’s a fantastic stat and really happy to see it. I think one thing that’s very interesting about this stat is that while you do have one of the highest positive sentiments, it is the lowest in neutral. So there’s not a lot of people that are, are, you know, ambivalent about cleanliness. Yes. So it’s either clean or it’s not clean. And so what’s interesting about that, is that because there’s less neutral, it actually does push up negative. So if you are having cleanliness issues, I think guests are definitely calling you out on it. Yes. So keeping an eye on that. And even if you’re, if you’re at a hotel and 70% of your guests think that it’s clean, and 30% don’t, that’s still a massive disparity and where you need to really look at it.

Ryan Embree:
That’s a big number. And it can certainly do some damage to, to your online reputation. And I would say to the individual hotelier, I know we’re talking in these macro data points, patterns and trends, but on an individual standpoint, if you’re sitting there and you’re saying, you know, I’ve got cleanliness issues in the spring time right now, we’re gonna get busier and busier as we get into the summer. And the overall, what the data is saying that cleanliness is more often than not, not an issue. Yeah. So if you are seeing individual cleanliness issues and you’re kind of blanketing and saying, well, everyone’s got cleanliness issues. Right now, the data’s not showing that, and it could be hurting your business and costing you bookings.

Jason Lee:
Absolutely. And I think the important thing with cleanliness to look at too, while you’re looking at sentiment, cause cleanliness is an interesting topic because, when you have high sentiment in cleanliness, but maybe lower sentiment in bathroom, so these are really interesting spaces. The bathroom is, is one of those spaces that constantly gets called out. Yes. And this, our sentiment data shows that as well, where it actually has more negative than positive. Yeah. So, when mentioning bathroom, it’s mentioned negatively, a lot of the time. But that could be cleanliness, that could be other stuff.

Ryan Embree:
Yeah. I mean, the expectation there is a whole other level of cleanliness. You know, somebody might be able to forgive you if your lobby has a little sand in it if you’re a beach hotel. Yeah but if, if that’s found in a bathroom, that’s a completely different ballgame. And I think it’s about setting those expectations up front, understanding where those opportunities are at your hotel, and making sure that there are, these little issues are solved before they come into bigger problems. A hundred percent we’ve seen on the other side where this can get out of control and do some real damage to your online reputation. Let’s move on to another topic. This one was so fascinating to me. We have done, this is our second edition of the Spring Guest Sentiment Report. We did one last year, and if you wanna get all of this data, it is for free. It is on our website at TravelMediaGroup.com. We provide this every single season for our hoteliers out there. But this one we’ve never talked about before. And I can see doing future episodes, this being more and more of a topic that we’re gonna be talking about, it’s gonna start jumping up, talking about wifi and internet. Now, the interesting pattern here that we saw in this data is there’s actually 2:1 ratio of negative to positive sentiment. When wifi and internet is mentioned, this could be presenting a big problem for hotels right now. Yeah. Because wifi is just getting more prevalent. It’s, it’s not getting less used.

Jason Lee:
Right. and I think it’s the need by the traveler. So, you know, before I think you could have a business traveler, they show up, they connect their laptop, they check their emails and they’re good to go. Now you have possibly the same person that wants to connect their tablet, they wanna connect their laptop, they wanna connect their phone, they’re definitely streaming. They’re probably not watching your television. And now you have even further, when you get into families traveling where you have, everybody has screens. Yeah. So the amount of screens that are out there that need wifi access is only growing. And so I think wifi quality is a huge thing, but I also feel like it also comes down to expectations as well. So if you have wifi that is having issues, maybe letting people know something streams slower, or maybe consider taking the gatekeeper off of your wifi. I know I’ve experienced that where I come in and I connect into the free wifi and I’m offered a better wifi, and then the free wifi is not great, but the amenity list shows it as free wifi. So if you have free wifi that isn’t strong enough for people to stream, or free wifi that’s not strong enough for multiple devices inside of a room, then you probably are gonna have consistent guest issue.

Ryan Embree:
And I’ve had a lot of industry experts on this podcast over the last couple months and where have they said the opportunity has been these work from home, you know, they hate the term “bleisure”, but that’s what they are. They’re, they’re traveling with their families. Maybe they’re hybrid. They only come in the office a couple days. They’re gonna take their summer vacation a couple days early and stay a couple days late. But if they’re seeing that your hotel has connectivity issues, wifi issues constantly, that’s costing you business. And that new type of traveler, that new age traveler that everyone is on the lookout for to fill those off nights, now all of a sudden they’re, they’re staying with your competitor across the street. But it is about setting those expectations. You brought it up before, it’s not just about the, the in room experience, it’s also all around the property. And how frustrating that can be because we’re becoming a more connected world and not less connected. So wifi very important. If you’re a hotel, you’re listening to this and hasn’t come up. The trends are certainly showing it’s on the rise right now.

Jason Lee:
Yeah. And I agree. I think all around the property is really important. You know, I’m in my room, but like you’re saying, I might be here for business and leisure, so I might have a meeting in the lobby and I go down there and I, I want to connect up, and have a meeting and I’m not able to do that. Or there’s some sort of limitation.

Ryan Embree:
The business center is becoming, I guess less of a, less of a place and, and they want the whole hotel to be your business center.

Jason Lee:
That’s a great point for marketing too, because we do a lot of social media and marketing for hotels and we see that, we see a business center. I still see fax and copy service. I’m like, who’s faxing and copying? Where, who, who, who needs all this stuff? But I think, but knowing what amenities are important, setting the expectation for those is really, that’s the secret, you know, to, to getting more guests and being able to take share from your competitor and be a stronger force inside of your market. And I think that’s really what sentiment analysis comes down to. It’s, it’s really analyzing your strengths and weaknesses and seeing kind of where things are at, but also be like, how do I mitigate that? How do I, how do I make the most out of what I have? Because you might be in a situation where you have an older hotel and you just can’t, your wifi signal is what it is. You know, and you’ve had engineers out and you’re trying to figure it out. But if I understand it and I know it, I can set an expectation, I can try to mitigate that damage as much as I can, but also I can accentuate the other pieces of my property that might be important to a traveler.

Ryan Embree:
Absolutely. And providing alternatives is something huge for a hotel maybe like that, that says, Hey listen, we’ve got wifi, but if you need it, there’s actually a Starbucks across the street that can potentially, serve as a place where you can do your work there. And promoting that on places like social media and review response as well.

Jason Lee:
I’ve also stayed at hotels that have had, you know, strong 5G for my carrier. Yes. You know, and, and that’s also been nice.

Ryan Embree:
It’s something to promote, like you said, to market, I don’t think there’s a lot of people that think, oh, I’m gonna do a social media post about my wifi or connectivity. But it’s what people are talking about. It’s what people are looking for in the expectations there. Yeah. so you wanna make sure that you’re putting yourself in the best position to capture travel.

Jason Lee:
You definitely could do a social media post on, on streaming. A hundred percent. You know. Absolutely. So, you know, continue binging your favorite show while staying at our hotel. I think that those are important stuff.

Ryan Embree:
Absolutely. That’s a great point. So as we move into our final and last kind of pattern and trend here, this one also think had some kind of ramifications from the last couple years and, and the impact that Covid had. Hotel breakfast, we did this episode a couple years ago, and this was one of the most negative spaces was guests talking about breakfast. And I think it came down to hotels really didn’t know what they were doing with their hotel breakfast. And the guests didn’t have an expectation of what to expect. They came to some parts of the country where they were told to just get up to their room and, and there wasn’t gonna be breakfast served. Other parts, we tried to adapt with some grab and go, and then other hotels were serving their breakfast buffets. Yeah. I feel like now things have kind of settled in. Hoteliers recognize this as an opportunity to set expectations. And we see that here with the stat where it says, hotel breakfast was only mentioned negatively, 2 out of every 10 mentions. So if you think about that 10 reviews, only two of them are talking about breakfast negatively. I think that’s a great accomplishment for this industry.

Jason Lee:
I absolutely agree. I think there’s a lot of data to unpack in breakfast. And, and it’s interesting cause we, on the review response side, it’s something that we, it’s an opportunity for us to define it. And, and because breakfast is so, I guess ambiguous. So I offer a free breakfast and is that like a mini muffin and a cup of coffee? You know, or is that waffles and sausage and eggs. So the definition of breakfast, of free breakfast or breakfast included is really out there. I think, a lot of the negativity that we see on the breakfast side comes from the lack of expectation. And that could also be both things, both sides of that. So a full service property that says that they have breakfast that’s not defined free, I think it’s important to define it that it is not free. You know, and so there, so the expectation that I’m coming down to a free breakfast and now it’s a $20 breakfast is something that could be a big detractor. But on the same note, I have a free breakfast, I come down to that breakfast and it’s not what I want. But I also understand, and I know there’s hotels listening to this right now, cause I’ve been in the same point, it’s very difficult to please people. The bananas aren’t ripe enough. This isn’t my brand of yogurt or whatever. It’s like people have the stuff that they want and they have some kind of, like, they’re always gonna have a comment about it. But like you’ve said, I guess we’ve talked about this in this episode many times, it’s setting the expectation, making sure that that you have at least they understand it’s not just the hours. It’s not just, Hey, breakfast starts at 6:00 AM it’s here’s the stuff in the breakfast. Here’s what you can expect.

Ryan Embree:
Absolutely. And we understand that preference, that you’re not gonna please everyone, a hard and a soft bed, right? Is gonna please two different people. But I think a good review response in talking about, you know, we’re sorry, this wasn’t to your preference. This is what we host in our morning breakfast is a great response because now all of a sudden I understand as a perspective traveler that oh, they didn’t like banana muffins, but I happen to enjoy them. And I know what to expect. Kind of blunts that shock when they get there and they find themselves in that situation. Because I hate to say it, but we’re, we’re very, just as a society very pessimistic about like, okay, what’s the worst thing that can happen if I go to this hotel? So we’re constantly, even if we see ten five-star reviews, we might look for that negative piece of feedback just to say, what are people negatively saying about this? This can’t be a perfect hotel. And that’s where we need to be able to have a perfect response to that negative review because it can show things like, I’m able to handle issues or this is a preference, this is why this type of feedback was left.

Jason Lee:
I think that’s an important. What you just said is so important because I think it goes to, if you have defined what you’re doing right, there’s no need to apologize if a guest doesn’t like what, what it is that you’re serving, they don’t like waffles or whatever. You don’t have to apologize for that. It’s another time to double down on your definition of breakfast. That’s an important thing of probably anything you have with your hotel. Just like you said, a hard bed is bad and good for two different types of guests, but ultimately I think it comes down to how do we in general, how do we serve guests? How do, how do we create the best possible experience overall? And I leverage these different pieces of data to do that, knowing that I’m not gonna please everybody. But also knowing that every opportunity is a chance for service recovery, it’s a chance to bond with that guest and get them on our side. But also I think every opportunity from the written standpoint, publicly is an opportunity to inform other guests.

Ryan Embree:
What you just explained is what we’re doing, again, on a macro level, and this is what every hotelier that really cares about their property and what guests are saying should do on an individual property level and say, listen, I just heard Jason and Ryan talk about these five trends that are happening across the US, 60,000 hotels. What are the top five trends as I go into the summer that I need to work on? Because again, as we get into a busy time, these issues are gonna become problems and the things that people love about your property, you have more eyes than ever looking at your property right now. You need to be really making some noise about those things.

Jason Lee:
I totally agree. And I would say like, you know, kind of as my final thought on sentiment, and I don’t wanna just keep hammering this down, but take a look at this data and you know, one of the things that’s interesting about sentiment is that this isn’t just one review and like in this case we’re talking about three months worth of reviews. But you can look at the last year on most platforms, you can see kind of a trend line for these various aspects. Be real with yourself. If you’re like, all guests complain, if this is where you’re at, all guests complain. Any guest that complains their complainer, there’s no validity to their complaint. Look at the trend. If that trend is a persistent trend, there is more than validity to their complaint. It is a issue at your property that is affecting lots of guests. And if you look at it from, from a numbers standpoint, it could be hundreds of thousands of dollars in room revenue that you’re losing just by these various things. So looking at these things, so I know it’s like there’s pain in it because you don’t wanna think that your room has a smell issue, but if you have multiple guests saying your room has a smell issue, then you’ve gotta fix it. You’ve gotta figure out what it is and fix it. I know it’s tough. It can be tough, especially, you know, when you’re putting out fires and you’re doing all the other things at a hotel. And I’ve been in that position and I understand like the dilemma there. But ultimately what this stuff does and where you can really leverage this data beyond the marketing is in, if you fix the stay, if you improve guest experience, if you can approve it by 10%, 20%, all of these numbers get better. And once that happens, all the rest of your numbers get better, your conversion gets higher because your reviews are better. Your online presence, there’s more positive sentiment on social media about you. There’s all of those things that are positive all come from guest experience. They all come from the root of where all this data comes from.

Ryan Embree:
As we wrap up this episode, I think, you know, what speaks volumes to that is when we do these consultations with hotels, when I’ve talked to these hoteliers, a lot of times when I bring them to a TripAdvisor page or a Google page and I’ll show them a review, they’ll have a response to why that negative review is, is not the case or is invalid. But when I bring them to performance over time and I show them a specific topic, they have a completely different reason. And they say, yeah, you know, our breakfast has been really tough lately. And instead of justifying kind of that one individual and what happened in their their case, they’re accepting it more and more as they see it across the spectrum. And that’s what this does for you. That’s, that’s why this is so powerful. And if you’re a listener out there, like I said, this is all provided for you on our website at TravelMediaGroup.com. But if you wanna look at your hotel individually, call us up. We can do this, we can pull this information. Jason and his team has developed a tool to do just that for you and we can talk through some of this stuff.

Jason Lee:
Yeah, absolutely.

Ryan Embree:
Super fascinating. I feel like we could stay on this, this episode for an hour, but we’ll have to stop it here. But we will get you back here for the summer and I would imagine those numbers are gonna be blown out of the water we are in for a huge summer. Very excited to see, those numbers. And, wanna thank Jason for joining me on the Suite Spot. Thanks once again. Awesome. Thank you all for listening. We’ll talk to you next time on The Suite Spot. To join our loyalty program, be sure to subscribe and give us a five star rating on iTunes. Suite Spot is produced by Travel Media Group. Our editor is Brandon Bell with Cover Art by Bary Gordon. I’m your host Ryan Embree, and we hope you enjoyed your stay.