TrustYou, the market leader in travel data analysis and online reputation management for the hospitality and global travel industry, working in conjunction with Donna Quadri-Felitti, Ph.D., at New York University, Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism, and Sports Management, revealed first quarter trends in travel reviews and hotel guest sentiment. Among the findings: travelers enjoy better service compared to a year ago in Asia Pacific (APAC) and Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), better food was the star in North America and Internet/Wi-Fi was a global source for complaints.

TrustYou's reports are based on a random sample of 6.1 million reviews written for hotels across all price categories from TrustYou's database of more than 250 million worldwide reviews and are segmented by three regions (Asia Pacific and Europe, Middle East & Africa and North America), with analysis in each report by select countries/sub-regions and major markets within each region. The reports are available for free download here.

"Patterns have emerged that are unique to each destination's mix of hotel types, price levels and traveler segments, so it is important for hoteliers to review what is working in their particular destination," said Margaret Ady, Marketing Director at TrustYou. "One thing is quite consistent across all markets: travelers continue to gripe about hotel Internet, even more so than price."

Many destinations throughout APAC and EMEA saw an improvement in hotel Service Scores. Popular leisure tourism destination, Malé (in the Maldives), for example, which reported an 11.6% increase in incoming tourists for the first two months of 2014, saw improvements in overall review scores (+3.3%), traveler satisfaction with rooms (+19.0%) and service (+4.7%). These were some of the biggest improvements in the aforementioned categories analyzed among all major markets in the reports.

Other destinations followed different patterns. While travelers were typically more content with service compared to a year ago in APAC and EMEA, there appeared to be some confusion about what to expect from the room and/or food and beverage offerings in many major markets throughout these regions. Markets including Berlin, Cape Town, Auckland and Taipei improved service from a year ago, but travelers were less satisfied with both their rooms and food.

Conversely, in North America, travelers tended to be content with food, but less impressed with service compared to last year. In Chicago, Los Angeles and New York, for example, travelers gave food higher scores, with improvements ranging from +1.2% to +3.8%, while service scores declined between -0.4% to -1.7%.

"Travelers demand excellent hotel experiences. In many destinations, travelers were not completely satisfied with some aspect of their stay in the first quarter of 2014. Some hoteliers made up for these declines by offering better service. In destinations where service scores improved, it appeared to positively influence overall review scores," added Quadri-Felitti, an associate professor at NYU specializing in hotel and tourism marketing. "The analysis in these reports highlights which areas could be improved upon so that travelers become even more satisfied with their stay in the future and proves that each market is worth assessing separately."

The full reports are available for download here.

About TrustYou

TrustYou's mission is to help make customers happy. Happy customers are loyal, spend more, and talk positively about their experience. To achieve this goal, TrustYou turns insight into impact with three category-leading platforms:

  • The Customer Experience Platform (CXP) helps to improve quality and rankings based on surveys and reviews across the web, respond to all feedback with the help of AI, and actively market your reputation.
  • The Customer Data Platform (CDP) helps to merge customers' footprints into single profiles, understand your audiences, market to them, and measure the success of campaigns and messages.
  • The chatAI platform helps to provide answers faster than humanly possible, ensure personalized recommendations for more bookings, and lower operational costs.

Learn more at www.trustyou.com.

Katharina Heitmann
Marketing Director
+49 89 54 80 29 25
TrustYou