The Shiji Global Guest Experience Benchmark report offers detailed insights into guest experience and satisfaction trends, providing hotels with a powerful tool – the Global Review Index (GRI). This index allows establishments to compare their results against competitors and track performance over time, leading to improved operational efficiency and enhanced guest experiences.
Q3 2023 Guest Experience Benchmark. In this edition, they analyse their largest data set to date: Over 3.3 million reviews of 9,500 hotels around the world. We have also expanded our City Benchmark section to include Global Review Index™ (GRI) scores for 71 cities around the world, in addition to City Hotel Rankings for the top-ranking 60 hotels in select destinations worldwide. The report features the introduction of six new cities: Singapore, Doha, Los Angeles, Berlin, Mexico City, and Cairo. Across these cities, we rank the top 20 hotels in the 3*, 4*, and 5* star categories, providing your readers with valuable insights into industry leaders and trends.
Hotels continue to recover review scores, with a slight setback Global review volume continues to surge, led by Asia Pacific
The Global Review Index (GRI) for the global data set was 85.4%, an increase of 1.2 points over Q3 2022 but a slight decrease over the previous quarter. Four-star hotels showed the biggest improvement, growing the GRI by 1.4 points to 85.6%, whereas 5-star hotels fell just short of the 90 percentile (89.5%). Asia Pacific achieved the highest GRI of the six regions (87.4%), whereas the Middle East had the lowest GRI (83.8%)
Global review volume continues to surge, led by Asia Pacific
Global review volume grew by 15.0% relative to the same quarter in 2022. The largest increases came from the Asia Pacific region, growing by 38.2%, and the Latin America & Caribbean region, at 24.8%. Only European volume fell by 1.9%.
Booking.com and Google generate over 70% of reviews
Once again, Booking.com dominated review market share, generating 40.3% of global review volume in the quarter, although its share slipped by 8.5 points relative to Q3 2022. Google was not far behind, accounting for 30.1% of reviews, followed by Tripadvisor at 9.5%. Expedia generated only 5.5% of global review volume.
Unpredictability: The New Normal
Looking ahead to 2024, the outlook for the global hotel industry looks positive. Yet hotels face a number of headwinds that stand to have a direct impact on hotel operations and the guest experience – and, in turn, online reputation.
An evolving business mix: As leisure demand normalises, continued recovery of business, group, and international travel will alter travel patterns and shift the makeup of guests.
Labour shortages: While staffing pressures have eased, hotels continue to struggle to recruit, retain, and reskill the labour force they need to uphold standards of quality and service.
Inflation: Inflation rates have begun to level off, but elevated operational costs are putting downward pressure on budgets for labour, property upkeep, and capital expenditures.
Higher prices: Hoteliers have budgeted for pricing increases in 2024, in part to offset high operating costs, but may face a backlash in negative reviews if quality and service standards lag. Technology: As automation plays an increasing role in hotel operations, it may become a rising source of friction for hotel guests if not properly managed by hotels.
Climate change: More extreme weather is expected to disrupt travel patterns in 2024 and may change people’s decisions about when and where to travel.
Global conflicts: The recent outbreak of war in Israel and Gaza, together with the ongoing war in Ukraine, may disrupt travel patterns and drive-up fuel prices in 2024.
Pandemic: A new strain of Covid-19 or an entirely new pandemic could slow travel again or even bring it to a standstill.
Under the circumstances, hotels would be wise to continue to closely monitor guest feedback in reviews to understand how traveller sentiment and behaviour are changing and take the actions needed to keep guests happy and loyal in 2024 and beyond.
Kindly find the link to the full report HERE
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