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

by McLean Robbins on

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]

Hotel News We Noted: November 10, 2012

by McLean Robbins on

It’s official, and hopefully you’re not too blue about it. We’re in for four more years of President Obama, but that doesn’t mean Washington (hotels) are any less excited about inauguration. We’ve been tracking what our favorite properties are doing to prepare, but also what’s going on in the hotel world at large for this week’s “Hotel News We Noted.”

As always, send us questions and comments via email, and don’t forget that our annual Black Friday / Cyber Monday roundup is fast approaching. If you know of a great deal, sent it out way.

Hotel Openings: The James Miami, Four Seasons Beijing, Kukui’ula Club Cottages, Andaz Amsterdam
It’s a big week in the world of hotel openings! Here are the highlights:

  • The James has expanded their brand to the hot, hot, hot Miami with the opening this week of The James Royal Palm. The renovated property (formerly The Royal Palm) will join The James’ brand of boutique hotels in New York and Chicago.
  • Prefer something a bit more exotic? Four Seasons has opened their first hotel in China’s capital this week. The 313-room property is close enough to be useful to downtown business travelers and leisure guests seeking access to China’s many cultural attractions too.
  • We’ve had our eye on Hawaii for some time now, as airfare from the East Coast has been unusually affordable. On our next visit, we’re excited to check out the new Kukui’ula Club Cottages on Kaua’i, 15-single family cottages right next to the main Plantation House. Hello, if the President rents a private home while in Hawaii, why shouldn’t we?
  • Hyatt’s most hip brand just got a bit cooler, thanks to the opening of the new Andaz Amsterdam. What makes it a haute hotel opening? Awesome art (think in-room video art installations), a bicycle repair shop on-site (the city’s first) and a new step forward for the brand, as it’s the first Andaz in mainland Europe.

Hotel of the Week: Secrets The Vine Cancun

It takes a lot for us to express a desire to visit Cancun, a city better known for spring break than relaxing resort vacations. We’re intrigued by the new Secrets The Vine Cancun, an upscale take on the all-inclusive option. The adults-only resort is inspired (as The Vine name suggests) by wine, and includes a bar with 3,000 wine varietals, sommelier-led classes and tastings, wine-inspired spa menus and private chefs dinners. It’s not a trip to France, but it’s still pretty cool.

Happening Hotel Package: Bond, James Bond at Trump Toronto
In celebration of Toronto’s special “Designing 007: Fifth Years of Bond Style” exhibit and the newest Bond film, “Skyfall,” Trump Toronto has launched a totally over-the-top package we’re dying to try. The $17,007 “Shaken Not Stirred: Bond on Bay” package includes a two-night stay in an Executive Suite on the hotel’s 30th floor, offering fantastic downtown views, access to a Continental Bentley GT for duration of stay, all meals, including dinner with champagne at STOCK™ Restaurant Bar & Lounge for two for the duration of the stay, admission for two to the exhibition and two movie passes to a Bond film at TIFF Bell Lightbox, as well return limousine service, designer cocktail dress and Hugo Boss tuxedo with private fitting at The Room, courtesy of The Hudson’s Bay Company, a spa experience at Quartz Crystal Spa™ that includes a couples massage, hair and makeup for her and manicure for him, a martini “Shaken not Stirred” lesson at Suits Lobby Lounge and an in-room bespoke chocolate from the Chocolate Lab at STOCK Restaurant Bar & Lounge, as well as complimentary fruit and cigar box. Stays are available through January 20 using code PKG007.

[Image Credit: Secrets The Vine Cancun]

Canadian Hotel Rooms Test High For Bacteria, Investigation Shows

by Laurel Miller on

Oh, Canada. You’ve got national healthcare and spectacular scenery, but your hotel rooms … those need work.

According to a recent CBC Marketplace investigation conducted by a microbiologist, six diverse chain hotels ranging from budget to high-end had, “high levels of contamination creating potentially hazardous conditions for guests.”

Marketplace apparently surveyed thousands of “high-touch” spots in 54 rooms, using a “an adenosine triphosphate (ATP) measuring device that determines microbial contamination on surfaces.”

The filthiest items likely won’t come as a surprise to frequent travelers: bed comforters, bathroom faucets, and remote controls took top honors for bacterial counts. Microbiologist Keith Warriner of Guelph University, who conducted the investigation, warns that hotel bacteria is a greater health risk to guests, because the germs come from literally thousands of different bodies. In the case of bedding, we’re exposed to those nasties for a longer period of time.

If money is tight, you’ll be happy to know that ubiquitous cheapie Super 8 had some of the cleanest bathrooms, while luxury hotels often had poor results. The big picture is that just because a room looks clean, doesn’t mean it is. Blame overworked (and likely underpaid) hotel staff, who often don’t have adequate time to deep-clean all of the required rooms on their shifts.

Here’s a tip: Bring your own pillowcase, fold down the comforter, and make friends with a bottle of Purell when staying in a hotel or motel. Otherwise, just look at it as an immune system-building holiday.

[Photo credit: flickr user adrigu]

Birth Of A Hotel: A Purely ‘Presidential’ Bathtub

by McLean Robbins on


It may be four more years for President Obama, but the presidential suite at Capella Washington has yet to be inaugurated. The latest on-property amenity, a 6-foot-wide bath stone tub, was installed earlier this week. We can even envision a Republican and Democratic bath-off … the hotel has two 1,300-square-foot presidential suites.

We wonder what high-rollers will be bathing in it on opening day.

“The Birth of a Hotel” is a Gadling-exclusive series that details what happens as a hotel prepares to open. Follow along with the articles and updates at “The Birth Of A Hotel” page, here. We’d also love to hear from you, our readers. If you have a topic about hotel development or trends that you’d love to see explored, email us or leave a comment below.

[Image Credit: Capella Washington D.C., Georgetown]

Magic Equation: How Much Vacation Can You Afford?

by Allison Kade on

Everyone dreams of the absolutely perfect vacation. A whole year away. Sampling amazing cuisines every night. Five-star hotels everywhere. Screw the cross-country bus, you’ll take the bullet train!

All of that can be yours, at a cost, of course.

Planning a vacation is all about balancing variables. Think of it as a triangle between cost, time and luxury – you can have two, but never all three.

So:

  • If you want a yearlong trip in the lap of luxury, that’s fine … you’ll just have to sacrifice your budget.
  • If you want a luxurious trip without spending a ton, that’s fine, too. You’ll just have to sacrifice duration, like staying just one night at a fancy resort.
  • Want to go away for a long time without blowing all your cash? Great, it looks like you’ll be backpacking and staying in hostels for a while to come.

This is particularly important in the planning stages of your trip, when you’re deciding where to go and for how long. After all, if you planned for two weeks in an expensive country and realize halfway through that you’re going to go over budget, it’s a little too late, isn’t it?

The key to staying on budget is to figure out how you’ll allocate your resources by working the ratio of those three factors: cost, duration and how much you’ll spend on the ground. Think about what matters most to you and then hold yourself to it as best you can.

Based on personal experience as both a traveler and a personal finance writer – and a significant amount of number crunching to make sure my calculations make sense – I’ve come up with an equation to figure out just how much trip I, or you, can afford.The beauty is that the variables are just that: by understanding your travel situation as a give and take, you can tweak one variable to make more room for the others. Do this math:

Total Budget – (Airfare + Souvenir Budget) – (Estimated Cost Per Train Or Bus Ride x Total Rides) – [(Daily Food Estimate + Nightly Hotel Estimate + Daily Entertainment Estimate) x Total Days]

Then take a look at the number you get. Here’s how to decode:

Zero = You are precisely on budget, without a lot of wiggle room.

A positive number = That’s how much extra wiggle room you have in your budget. Toward the end of the trip, you might as well spend it on something fun! If you have a huge positive number, you have a lot leftover. You might even want to rethink some of your plans or calculations. In one direction, you can bring this closer to zero by adjusting your expected budget and simply spending less on this particular vacation. Maybe let the leftovers seed your fund for the next vacation! Otherwise, you might choose to go away for more days or up the quality of your accommodations (therefore increasing your nightly hotel estimate). Once you change a variable, remember to compute again to make sure you’re on track!

A negative number = You’re over budget, and you haven’t even arrived at your destination yet. Something in this equation needs to change. If you’re just a little in the red then you might be able to get away with tweaking a small component of this equation, to avoid altering your travel plans. For example, you might just give yourself less cash to spend on souvenirs, or eat a little more frugally while you’re away.

If you’re severely over budget, however, something’s gotta give. In some cases, it helps to go back to square one and rethink your location. Will you have to pay for expensive plane tickets? Even if the cost of living is cheap where you’re going, that only matters if you stay for a long time. So, for a short trip, maybe you can go somewhere closer to home to reduce the cost of getting there. For a longer trip, maybe you need to go somewhere cheaper, or reassess your travel style. And, of course, one of the fastest ways to knock this number down is to reduce your total days away, since, as you can see, that gets multiplied out.

If you are having trouble knocking down any of your estimated costs, it goes without saying that you can also balance this equation simply by increasing your total budget.

It’s never fun to hack away at your dream trip, but whatever you decide, remember the give and take between money, luxury and time. By choosing which of those three is most important, you’ll be able to craft a trip that’s just what you’re looking for, in the end.

[Image credit: Flickr user epSos.de]