If you stay in hotels on a fairly regular basis, then you’ve probably come to realize that they always seem to be asking for you to leave reviews.
“We hope you enjoyed your reservation. If you don’t mind, consider leaving us a review.”
“We hope you enjoyed your stay. If you did, please let us know with a quick review on our review page.”
These types of requests are pretty common when you stay in a business hotel, an Airbnb, an extended stay hotel, etc.
However, you may be wondering—what’s the point?
Why is it important for you, as a traveler, to take time out of your busy schedule to leave a review for a hotel that you may or may not ever stay in again?
Well, this is a great question.
But the truth is that, as a traveler, you have a lot of power in saying how hotels continue to innovate and upgrade their services as they grow and evolve in the hospitality industry.
And leaving customer reviews after staying at that particular hotel is probably the best means you have of contributing to the hospitality and travel industries in general—to help make them better industries for consumers in the long term.
So yes, taking one to two minutes out of your day to leave a review might seem like an empty investment in the short term.
But in the long term, it can actually lead to great change and positive benefits for you as a traveler.
Let’s talk about why this is the case.
1. It Makes For A Better Hospitality Industry
This may be hard to believe for some travelers.
But the majority of hotels actually do want to make their services better (and their customers happier).
Contrary to what many people who’ve had negative travel experiences may believe, the vast majority of hotel stays are actually pretty good—with customers tending to leave feeling pretty refreshed and happy with the service.
But part of the reason for this is because hotels are constantly innovating to try to drive more business—and, in return, provide a better customer experience so that they increase the possibility of booking future stays.
What does this mean for you?
It means that when you leave a review for a hotel that you had a good or bad experience with, it contributes to overall just making the hospitality industry better in the long term.
2. It Gives Hotels Information That They Can Use To Offer Better Service
Sometimes, things that seem obvious to consumers aren’t necessarily quite so obvious to the people on the business side of things.
As the needs of travelers change and evolve, hotels also need to change and evolve to meet those needs.
And when you write online reviews for hotels that include a bit of praise, mixed with some constructive criticism, this gives hotels the opportunity to become better.
3. It Fosters An Overall Better Hospitality Community
Some people spend a great deal of their time traveling.
This may include business travelers, remote workers, long haul drivers etc.
And these professionals are going to be making wide use of the hospitality industry as a whole.
Even if you’re not a full time traveler, you’ll probably still plan to stay in at least a few different hotels each year for the rest of your life.
You’ll probably do this on vacations, on the occasional business trip, when you go to visit your friends in Florida, etc.
Therefore, like it or not, there’s actually a built in community in the hospitality industry.
And the better this community gets, the better-off the travel experience overall is going to be for everyone. And of course, leaving online reviews lets hotels know what they’re doing right, and what they could be doing better to make the community better overall.
4. It Helps To Set A Precedent – Which Makes Hotels Try Harder
When hotels know that customers are going to leave positive or negative reviews, they also know that it’s in their best interest to deliver the best experience possible.
And whenever you leave a review after staying in a hotel, you reinforce the notion that it’s important for hotels to try to take care of their customers.
Therefore, if we all normalize the practice of leaving reviews, we’re all going to see an overall better experience as a result.
Hotel Engine may have said it best in their online overbooking guide:
“The hotel business relies on positive customer reviews and customer satisfaction. The last thing that any hotel wants is negative reviews on social media or 1-star ratings on Google or Yelp.”
Conclusion
Hopefully, this post has helped you to understand why it’s so important to leave online reviews about the hotels you stay in.
Of course, it’s completely up to you—but the next time you see that little ‘review reminder’ pop up in your email after departing from your stay, you may want to go ahead and take the time to leave one.
This is definitely a fantastic way to just overall help everyone to have better hotel experiences.
