The Best Investment Right Now? The Targeted Analysis of Guest Feedback - By Laura Badiu

With all the unexpected changes happening this year, the hospitality industry has been deeply impacted and many priorities have shifted overnight, both in the hotel operations and the traveler behavior. Different needs and expectations are surfacing every day and hoteliers find themselves in need of adjusting their investment plans in order to focus on what matters most in the context of the pandemic.

In light of the previous months, certain keywords have emerged in hospitality and travel, concepts that are turning into the main focus of future investments. It is becoming clear that cleanliness and health are the top concerns of the COVID-19 traveler. People who choose to travel during these uncertain times are often carrying many concerns and questions in their bags and they look up to hotels to reassure them and put their concerns at rest, through their efforts and stringent cleanliness measures. Even during previous years, TrustYou unveiled that the room, bathroom, or overall hotel cleanliness were one of the top negative impact scores in hotels from across different regions; and especially now, those categories are bound to be noticed and judged even harder.

While the current travel and hospitality scene is not going to shift back to normal anytime soon, it’s imperative for hoteliers to assess the situation and adjust their investments accordingly. Even - or especially - during a downtime caused by lockdown or a significant decrease in the number of guests, the proper analysis of guest feedback is the best possible investment, both from a time and a financial perspective. Cutting budgets and focusing on immediate actions can be the short-term solutions to a number of problems in the industry but it’s important to acknowledge that the race towards hotel recovery is a marathon rather than a sprint. Immediate measures will only go so far and we are now looking at a long-term change within the industry that requires long-term solutions. 

Naturally, having to close the hotel doors, even for just a while, is far from ideal; however, this can be an opportunity to not only review the hotel’s KPIs but also to properly analyze the feedback left by guests regarding the COVID-19 precautions and to make sure that you get to pinpoint and solve any eventual issues. By doing this, you can fully prepare for the opening and ensure that any future guests will be delighted about their stay at your property.

In order to constantly improve based on guest feedback and keep the engagement going throughout the entire guest journey, hoteliers need to rely on a feedback management solution, now more than ever before. Pair that with a thorough analysis of key review categories, like public health and you get the perfect recipe of not only driving guests to your hotel but also providing them with a safe, satisfactory stay. 

At TrustYou, we have anticipated the rising importance of key concepts like health and cleanliness and we developed the exclusive Public Health review categories, integrated in the platform’s Analytics dashboard. These new categories are based on a complex semantic analysis, which measures and analyzes the sentiments in keywords from hundreds of thousands of guest reviews from around the web. These specific insights show hoteliers users exactly what their guests think in terms of the COVID-19 measures taken by the hotel, what they need in order to feel secure, and what they expect from their hotel stay. Management is therefore able to emphasize guests’ well-being even more during post-coronavirus travels and turn guest feedback into actionable insights. 

To make operations even easier for users, we are now releasing the Public Health categories as a new tile in the Analytics dashboard, enabling TrustYou users to oversee this key data in a fast and effective way. Just like the rest of the tiles, the Public Health one is a visualization of the semantic data, which leads to an easily-digestible reporting capability. Make sure to read this recent article for even more details on the Public Health review categories and check out these 5 Ways To Leverage Feedback Tools While Your Hotel Is Temporarily Closed.

Also, check out the official page of the TrustYou Public Health data to learn more about how you can understand guests’ concerns and expectations around cleanliness and safety, in order to take the best measures and attract new guests to your hotel. At the same time, you can join TrustYou’s Recovery Race to get more insights, content, and expert advice on how to successfully navigate the COVID-19 crisis!

Laura Badiu

Laura is a passionate bookworm and a gifted writer. Since joining TrustYou’s marketing team, she has embraced topics in the travel and hospitality sector with enthusiasm. Using her degree in Journalism, Laura creatively weaves words into insightful stories with a focus on reputation management.

About TrustYou

TrustYou, the world’s largest guest feedback platform, empowers hotels with solutions to drive more bookings and improve their hotel product. Through each phase of the guest journey, hotels can utilize guest feedback to enhance review marketing and achieve operational excellence. Guest feedback influences 95% of booking decisions. TrustYou Meta-Review, which incorporates hundreds of millions of hotel reviews, surveys, and social posts for over 500,000 hotels worldwide, powers guest reviews on dozens of travel sites, including Google, Kayak, and Hotels.com.* These reviews also generate actionable insights for hotels to improve their presence along each step of the guest journey, from booking and pre-stay search queries, to real-time guest requests and messages, to post-stay feedback in the form of survey responses and reviews. Through the TrustYou partner program, PMS, CRM, IBE and other hotel software providers can integrate TrustYou’s guest feedback platform into their products to help their hotel clients positively influence bookings and revenue.

Find more information on TrustYou and the guest feedback platform on www.trustyou.com.

*TrustYou Meta-Reviews only contain verified reviews and do not include reviews from TripAdvisor

Press contact

Lize de Kock
lize.dekock@trustyou.net