Takeaways
Guest expectations are rising: Value perception has shifted, with personalisation becoming a key driver of satisfaction.
Mid-tier hotels outperform luxury properties: Competitive pricing and service enhancements attract more guests.
AI-generated reviews pose new challenges: Maintaining authenticity is crucial as fraud detection struggles to keep up.
Review policies impact engagement: Stricter enforcement has reduced total reviews but improved quality.
Digital engagement will define reputation in 2025: AI, chatbots, and self-service tools are reshaping guest interactions.
Hotels across the globe made a remarkable recovery in 2024, reaching a record-high contribution of $11.1 trillion to global GDP. But beyond the numbers, what’s driving this transformation? Hospitality is evolving fast, with guest expectations, AI-driven insights, and online reputation management reshaping the landscape.
We spoke with Bruno Saragat, Sales Engineer and Product Specialist at Shiji ReviewPro, to unpack the Guest Experience Benchmark Report 2024 findings. Based on over 39 million reviews from 11,200 properties, we discuss the trends shaping guest satisfaction, response times, and key drivers of the Global Review Index (GRI). New data points such as NPS scores, survey behaviour trends, and conversion rates are included for the first time, offering fresh insights into industry shifts.
Guest satisfaction is rising
Guest satisfaction has consistently improved, but are hotels getting better or are guest expectations shifting? With AI-driven experiences, personalisation, and evolving service models, could we see a new benchmark for what “good service” actually means in 2025?
Guest satisfaction has been growing since the beginning of Q3 2022. Whether this is mainly the long-tailed effect of the market bouncing back from the Covid pandemic is disputable, but several indicators hint at that. The GRI evolution shows that pre-COVID patterns are reinforcing, such as the peak season drop around August and the subsequent bounce back, a typical pattern of the pre-COVID era.
At the same time, data is telling us that expectations are shifting. This can be seen in the Value for money index trend evolution, for instance, which points out that the perception of this ratio has changed quite dramatically in 2024; indeed, many regions are experiencing a trend reversal (Europe, Latin America and Africa). No other major department score recorded such an abrupt stop to its positive trend.
Alongside all the other data points we collected, the bigger picture could be read as the guest experience shifts towards a more personalised one, thanks to the increased ability to collect and parse out data but with the limitation of market elasticity. A likely contributor to the latter is the short-term rental market, which pressures hotels with their ever-growing availability and price dynamics. Indeed, a good service includes key parameters such as room and facility cleanliness, qualified Staff and a room that does live up to the expectations the rates suggest.
Mid-tier hotels are winning in reputation
Luxury hotels dominated reputation scores for years, but now mid-tier hotels are making the biggest gains. Is this a sign of improving service standards, or are travellers prioritising value and experience over prestige?
Five-star hotels are indeed likely to face a more challenging environment as the recent inflation spike led to a further increase in rates, which, in turn, raised expectations even higher. Another factor is staff turnover. Though less relevant than before, this still affects the 5-star market. Data tells us, in reality, that while the luxury market has been able to contain the guest satisfaction loss caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, 4-star and 3-star properties GRI’s kept dropping up until August 2022.
Therefore, a more vigorous bounce back is now taking place for the mid-tier hotels, compounded by the rising rates that allowed them to attract some of the 5-star guests and grow their GRI faster than the luxury market.
Review volume is declining
Google and other platforms have ramped up efforts against fake and incentivised reviews, leading to a drop in total reviews. Will these measures reduce guest engagement or lead to more meaningful feedback?
Review volume is influenced by several factors, with three key variables standing out. First, sentiment analysis indicates that overall guest satisfaction is increasing, making negative reviews less likely and contributing to the J-shaped effect common in review distribution. Second, the crackdown on negative reviews has especially affected regions like Latin America, which saw a 10% drop in review volume in 2023. Lastly, there has been a market share shift for Booking.com, which saw its share decrease from almost 50% in 2022 to 37% in 2024 despite a rise in positive mentions.
The increased competition from Expedia and Hotels.com and more satisfied guests have contributed to this trend. In 2024, Booking.com, experienced a 1.4-point increase in positive mentions, marking a significant improvement.
Italy’s proof-of-purchase rule
Italy now requires proof of purchase for online reviews. If other countries follow suit, could this eliminate fraud and shrink review volume? What would this mean for platforms like TripAdvisor and Booking.com, which thrive on mass feedback?
Validating the reviews is quite a difficult task. The draft law introduces some hurdles that, if enforced, would disincentivise reviewers from posting. OTA sources like Booking.com and Tripadvisor will suffer huge losses, which would be detrimental to the whole industry and cause a considerable loss in the ability to capture actionable feedback. The draft law does not tell how the regulators will be able to pin down fake reviews. Fake reviews are a threat to the hotel industry, but this law seems to move to the opposite extreme by making it too hard for reviewers to express their feelings about their experience.
AI-generated reviews
AI tools can now create believable guest reviews at scale. Could this outpace fraud detection methods? If AI can flood the system with fake reviews, does this mean hoteliers need AI to fight AI?
The enormous potential of AI is challenging to keep in check. If used to generate believable reviews, it would alter the feedback loop, causing damage not just to travellers but also to the hotel itself. Indeed, over the long run, altering guest perception with fake reviews would only raise expectations that would not be met and add noise to the data, making it harder for the hotel industry to separate the wheat from the chaff.
As a precaution, AI tools that could police the review market would be beneficial in reassuring guests of the authenticity of the reviews they read. Still, the hotel industry will see the trade-off as not worth it. The reputation damage far outweighs the benefits of altering the review stream.
Reputation trends are shifting by region
Asia leads with record-high Net Promoter Scores, while Europe and North America show slower growth. What’s driving the regional gaps? Are Asian hotels setting new service standards, or are Western hotels struggling to keep up?
The Asiatic market was the first to recover from the pandemic, showing positive guest satisfaction about eight months earlier than the rest of the world. Both luxury and mid-tier hotels performed well until October when signs of a trend reversal emerged. Europe’s GRI is affected by peak season performance, leading to a slowdown in the luxury segment similar to that in North America’s 5-star market. Value and room performance are key factors in this trend.
In contrast, the Middle East and Africa recorded stronger growth. The Asian and Middle Eastern markets have maintained consistent performance over the past two years, while European and Latin American markets have seen declines, with mid-tier hotels in Europe and high-end hotels in Latin America lagging behind other regions in GRI for 2024.
OTA reputation shake-up
Agoda and Expedia have seen some of the biggest reputation gains, while Booking.com and Google remain relatively flat. What’s changed in guest sentiment and platform policies pushing these shifts?
In the wake of the pandemic, Booking.com’s quick and dynamic reaction to cancellation policies and other guest policies boosted its market share, leaving behind not just the minor OTAs but also its major competitors. In the pre-pandemic era, Google was poised to overtake Booking.com and become the leader in review generation worldwide. The post-Covid period saw Google regaining market share quickly thanks to the ease with which its users could post a review. As we said earlier, the clampdown on fake reviews altered this trajectory, grinding the positive trend to a halt.
AI-powered review response speed
Hotels respond to reviews faster than ever, with AI tools helping reduce response times. Does speed come at the expense of genuine guest engagement? Could we reach a point where automated responses do more harm than good?
No, I don’t think so, and it’s not because we at Shiji-ReviewPro have recently deployed our own AI response tool. I say that because the trade-off between replying to fewer reviews slower versus being able to provide a timely answer that addresses the points raised by the reviewers is surely in favour of the latter. In general terms, AI-powered review response tools allow users to customise the answer, adding the key personal touch the guests expect. However, properly replying to reviews is a time-consuming task that could be spent to better cater to, for instance, in-house guests’ needs.
Response time has dramatically increased over the past 3 years, with reviews now being responded to in around four days, down from more than six in 2022. At the same time, the review response percentage kept rising. Hotels have to adapt to this quickly evolving trend by ensuring they can keep the pace of their competitors.
In the last analysis, automated responses can do harm only if the AI output is not supervised and reviewed before publication if no details are added whenever possible to make every review unique.
The revenue impact of reputation
Hotels with high Net Promoter Scores see better revenue and occupancy rates. Can online reputation become a predictive indicator of financial performance? Should reputation analytics be used as a core metric in revenue management?
Traditional revenue strategies focus on pricing, competition, and market conditions, but guest perception and satisfaction influence demand just as significantly. Reputation also reflects operational performance, a key driver of any property’s long-term success. Therefore, reputation analytics should be integrated into revenue management, especially in a competitive market where reputation can play a significant role in the prospects’ final booking decision. Forecasting reputation trends would become a huge component of this process and the ability to execute a reputation strategy effectively.
What will define hotel reputation in 2025?
The industry has always focused on cleanliness, service, and value. But with AI chatbots, self-service kiosks, and hyper-personalization, will reputation drivers shift toward digital engagement instead?
This is a tricky question. The luxury market will keep focusing on personalisation by using the data they can capture to enhance the guest experience. Thus, a hotel’s reputation will be defined by its capability to apply the latest technologies to empower its operatives to deliver the experience their guests will remember.
The mid-tier properties have raised their rates by more than 25% since pre-pandemic in Europe. Balancing rates and guest expectations will play a crucial role. Optimising costs and managing staff schedules may push the 4-star properties to embrace digitalisation and make digital engagement part of their major revenue streams.
Final Thoughts
The Guest Experience Benchmark Report 2024 highlights an industry in transition. While satisfaction scores are improving, guest expectations are becoming more nuanced. Mid-tier hotels are gaining ground while review policies and AI are reshaping online reputation management.
For hoteliers, adapting to these shifts is essential. Leveraging AI for efficiency while maintaining authenticity will be key. Hotels must stay attuned to regional trends and guest sentiment to remain competitive.
As we go through 2025, the industry must balance digital transformation with human-centric service. The future of hotel reputation will be defined by those who can merge technology with genuine hospitality.
