Looking Inside Online Reviews To Find Out What Travelers Love (And Hate)

Online review sites can be a hotel’s best friend or worst enemy, and many travelers argue that hotels have only themselves to blame for bad reviews. But what really gets a traveler’s blood boiling? Online reputation management company TrustYou surveyed exactly that – the top ten complaints and compliments of hotel guests worldwide.

The good news for hotels is that the number of positive comments outnumbers the negative by a landslide. Great service, for example, has nearly nine times the number of comments than unprofessional or incompetent service.

The company, which has pioneered a product called TrustScore (similar to Klout for hotels), has tracked top rants and raves by number of mentions on online review sites, tracking data from more than 200 review websites in 23 languages worldwide. Are any of these your pet peeves?

Top Rants:

  • Unprofessional or incompetent service
  • Small rooms
  • Expensive or overpriced
  • Tasteless or bad breakfast
  • Bad food
  • Dirty rooms
  • Unfriendly service
  • Bad bathrooms
  • Loud or noisy room
Top Raves:
  • Great service
  • Great location
  • Good room
  • Great food
  • Great breakfast
  • Clean room and/or hotel
  • Good, affordable price
  • Good bed
  • Nice view

In general, we’d agree that we become upset about the complaints listed above as well, and most of these are things that travelers could avoid by careful online research prior to booking.

[Image Credit: TrustYou]