In 2014, Revinate performed a deep analysis of its online review data and evaluated more than 20 million reviews from 80,000 properties in 125 countries. Last month, we released the 2017 edition of the Global Hotel Reputation Benchmark Report, which is intended to update that information with data from over 70 million reviews published online in 2015 and 2016.
One of the items we looked at was the global review distribution by site. The review site landscape is in constant flux with major changes in the dominant players in just the past couple of years.
2016 Global Hotel Reviews by Distribution Site
Insights
- Booking.com is dominant globally and continuing to gain traction.
- Google reviews have grown explosively in the past year.
- Larger review sites are continuing to grow, edging out smaller ones.
Analysis
According to our data, the dominant player in the hotel review space is Booking.com, hosting 39 percent of all reviews worldwide. TripAdvisor remains second, losing some ground in the past year to just under 25 percent of global reviews.
One surprise for us this year was the magnitude of Google’s volume surge. With the prevalence of mobile search in the travel-booking process, and with Google’s broader focus on travel and trip planning experiences (with “Destinations” and “Trips” leveraging their dominance in search) it’s not a shock that the tech giant’s review volume is growing. But this year, the search giant increased its review volume by an astounding 461 percent, surpassing Hotels.com as the world’s third largest purveyor of hotel reviews.
The other trend we’re seeing this year is the continued effects of consolidation in the OTA and review site space. Larger sites are continuing to garner market share, edging out smaller sites. The top four sites now host 78% of all online hotel reviews. It’s also worth pointing out that because the Priceline Group owns Booking.com, Agoda, and OpenTable, it now hosts 43 percent of all online hotel reviews. Expedia, with Hotels.com, Orbitz, Travelocity, and Wotif, owns over 10 percent.
Action item
Don’t forget about Google. With its huge growth in review volume and its increasing importance in the travel search and booking process, hoteliers should be evaluating and responding to feedback there. A review on Google has the potential to be hugely influential on a hotel’s direct bookings.
Why is benchmarking important?
Benchmarking allows hotels to track their performance against the competition and set realistic and specific goals based on industry standards. In a 2014 study of our hotel customers, we found that hotels that set goals outperform those that don’t – the goal setters had the highest average rating and the largest percentage of online reviews. Reviews are a very important benchmark, according to a Cornell University study that found that a larger number of positive reviews correlated with increased bookings and the ability to raise rates.
Our Global Hotel Reputation Benchmark Report is designed to provide benchmarking guidelines for hoteliers, so they can assess and improve their own performances.
Click here to access the Full Report
