It’s a fact that can no longer be ignored: leisure travellers under the age of 30 simply don’t care about star ratings. And it’s not just Millennial travellers either – anyone who’s tech-focused automatically rates user-generated content (e.g., reviews) higher than star rating.
Recently, while booking a holiday in Cyprus, I looked at many brand.com sites to find a hotel, but was quickly frustrated at a) how long it took me to trawl through each site’s description of things that don’t matter to me, and b) equally unable to find what did matter.
Most frustratingly, however, many of the brand.com sites were part of larger chain sites and thus, had the minimum of information about an individual property.
On most sites, I couldn’t even find the pool size, let alone breakfast timings or wi-fi speed. Several sites listed the amenities they offered, such as hireable jet skis, yet failed to mention what part of the city the hotel was located in.
Defeated, I went immediately to TripAdvisor and viewed the top five highest rated hotels in my location (which I found within 30 seconds of landing on the site), and within 20 minutes of intense review, had booked the fourth one.
I’m extremely happy with my choice – between the TripAdvisor ratings and room tips, and Booking.com’s clear photos and generous cancellation terms, I got a hotel that has literally every single thing I wanted for my holiday – and I got the best price.
However, one thing that many reviewers queried was, “Why has this property, which is absolutely amazing, with great amenities and service, only been given two stars?”
From the spate of Excellent reviews and the occupancy rate the hotel enjoys, it seems as if the lack of stars hasn’t troubled any guests.
According to RJ Friedlander, founder and CEO of Review Pro, a company which provides reputation management tools, commented, “Online reviews and other types of user-generated content are influencing consumers and business travellers much more than the traditional classification systems.
“Most travellers don’t focus on star ratings”, he continues, “or other industry classifications when searching for a hotel but rather evaluate their options based on the following:
• Location (city/destination/area)
• Type of trip (business, leisure, etc.)
• Specific criteria (free wifi, buffet, parking, etc.)
• Price/best value based on above criteria
• Online reviews/reputation (overall & related to specific criteria)”
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To a lot of younger travellers, a star rating is irrelevant mainly because it doesn’t accurately reflect their experience at a hotel. For example, it’s disconcerting how many five star hotels in the GCC don’t offer five star service.
Recently, when traveling to a hotel in the GCC during Ramadan, we were offered free breakfast because we are reward programme members. As a member of the team was fasting, we asked if we could convert that to a free Iftar or suhour, or one equivalent room service meal. The front desk staff checking us in was very accommodating and agreed to this.
However, when we checked out, the front desk staff refused to take the fast-breaking meal off of our bill. Imagine the frustration at choosing a five star, luxury hotel known for good service and being denied the most basic customer service.
Another experience at an even fancier five star resort in the GCC was worse – I scheduled a late breakfast meeting with a friend at the hotel. I had been speaking with the restaurant manager, (a fan of Hotelier Middle East) and we had a nice chat.
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Jul 23, 2015 , France
One of the things for UGC reviews as well is that you can mostly ignore the one-star and five-star reviews, as those are done by people who either loved the place to bits or hated it, so the review is going to be biased for/against the hotel. What I always look at instead is the 2-3-4 star review...