Study Shows TripAdvisor is Credible Source of Guest Satisfaction

While I rarely hear our customers doubt the validity of TripAdvisor reviews, I have seen articles and comments from people claiming that it’s too easy to write a false review on the site and the company should be doing more to validate hotel stays. In an effort to determine whether or not TripAdvisor reviews can be considered a credible source of guest satisfaction, MarketMetrix conducted a study that compared results from TripAdvisor reviews with the Market Metrix Hospitality Index (MMHI).

The conclusion is that “the mean scores of hotels track very consistently and closely between TripAdvisor (CSI) and MMHI. This indicates that, when taken as a whole, the reviews for a particular hotel are a reliable measure of average customer satisfaction of that hotel, given adequate sample size.”

As someone who works closely with hoteliers to turn online reviews into opportunities to improve operations and drive loyalty and sales, I can’t say that I am surprised. The majority of our clients are already treating reviews as a critical measurement of guest satisfaction and responding to reviews to show how seriously they take the feedback. Some hotels and management groups are taking the next critical step and creating goals that are becoming part of comp packages and bonus plans. Revinate’s GS2 Reports are making it easy to track goals and ‘operationalize’ review feedback. I expect many more will follow.

Read about the study and the results here, on HospitalityNET.