Over the next several weeks we’ll take a closer look at data in each segment of ReviewPro’s 2018 Hotel Brand Reputation Rankings report. Our report analyzes over 15 million reviews of 32,359 branded hotels in the U.S. and Canada posted between April 1, 2017, and March 31, 2018. This week we focus on the luxury brand segment. Who are the best and worst performers, and what does it take to climb the rankings?

One of the key takeaways of our analysis is the importance of offering a consistent guest experience across hotels within a brand portfolio. The data tells us that as we climb the chain scale ladder, brands tend to become more consistent in their performance, earning a higher online reputation.

At the top of the chain scales is the luxury segment, where room rates are high and so are guest expectations. While there can be vast differences among luxury hotels and brands, they are generally expected to provide the highest standards of service, guest rooms, amenities and facilities in a destination.

Ranking by Global Review Index™ (GRI)

By and large, luxury brands are delivering on these expectations. The average Global Review Index™ (GRI) in the luxury segment was 90.3%, the highest of all segments and significantly higher than the overall average of 82.0%. (The GRI™ is ReviewPro’s industry-standard online reputation score derived from online reviews.)

Of the 26 brands in the luxury ranking, 19 achieved a GRI™ of over 90%. The difference between the highest ranking brand (Four Seasons at 93.6%) and the lowest ranking brand (SIXTY Hotels at 81.8%) comes in at 11.8%. The most improved brand was Valencia Group, with an increase in GRI™ of 2.9% over the previous year, clocking in at 91.6%.

Top 3 luxury brands ranked by GRI™ 

Four Seasons 93.6%

Montage 93.2%

Mandarin Oriental 92.6%

 

Rankings by Department Index

The report also ranks brands by four department indexes. Here again, the standards are extremely high, particularly in cleanliness. Perhaps unsurprisingly for the luxury segment, value ratings are lower. Here are the top luxury brands:

Service
Four Seasons 94.6%
Mandarin Oriental 93.4%
Rosewood 92.9%

Value
Trump Hotels 88.4%
Four Seasons 87.1%
Valencia Group 86.1%

Rooms
Montage 95.6%
Mandarin Oriental 94.7%
Trump Hotels 94.7%

Cleanliness
Montage 97.1%
Four Seasons 96.7%
Mandarin Oriental 96.1%

Review Source Indexes

When it comes to review volume, we see similar patterns in the luxury brand segment as in the other segments, with Google growing its market share by an incredible 117.8%, representing 31.6% of reviews. While in other segments Booking.com represents the second highest review share, in the luxury segments second place goes to TripAdvisor. However, the volume of reviews from TripAdvisor fell by 11.0%, representing 22.4% of total reviews. Although Booking.com reviews grew by 13.8%, the site generated a significantly lower proportion of reviews in the luxury segment than in other segments, at 16.8% of total reviews.

Interestingly, Facebook accounted for over 10% of reviews in the luxury segment, an increase of 37.8% over the previous year. By contrast, Facebook generated only 0.3% of reviews in the economy segment. The recent decision of Facebook to not offer traditional hotel ratings anymore has the potential to tip review volume further in favor of Google and Booking.com. Going forward, it will be interesting to see the impact of this decision on the GRI™ of hotels and brands. Ratings from Facebook tended to be higher on average than from other sources.

Management Responses

Luxury brand properties tend to be larger in size, receiving over 1,600 online reviews on average in the one-year period. This is close to 300 reviews more than properties in the upper upscale segment and almost three times as much as upscale properties receive. Nevertheless, luxury brands clearly recognize the importance of responding to guest feedback. The overall response rate was 39.3% of respondable reviews, including an impressive 65.5% of TripAdvisor reviews.

Find out how your brand ranks and what it will take to beat the competition by downloading the 2018 Hotel Brand Reputation Rankings: USA & Canada today.

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