The Q3 2025 Shiji Global Guest Experience Benchmark reveals a narrative of resilience. Traditionally, the third quarter, coinciding with peak travel in the northern hemisphere, brings a dip in guest satisfaction as occupancy rises and rates surge. This year, however, results defied expectations.
Takeaways
Global GRI reached 87.0%, maintaining pre-summer highs despite peak travel pressures.
Google accounted for nearly all global review volume growth, gaining share in every region.
Emerging markets led the recovery, with Latin America (+17%), Africa (+7.5%), and the Middle East (+4.4%) posting strong gains.
5-star hotels achieved record response speeds (2.8 days), though total engagement slightly declined.
North America and Oceania were the only regions to record GRI declines for 5-star hotels, reflecting ongoing macro challenges.
Guest experience resilience in a high-season quarter
The Global Review Index (GRI) climbed back to 87.0% in September, regaining its pre-summer peak from May 2025. This rebound, during one of the busiest travel periods of the year, signals that hotels are becoming increasingly adept at maintaining quality under pressure. Notably, 3-star and 4-star properties each saw +0.8-point year-over-year gains, growing twice as fast as the 5-star segment (+0.4).
This quarter’s results reflect a hospitality industry that continues to evolve, leveraging technology, data, and operational agility to keep guest satisfaction high even when the pressure is on.
Global overview: GRI growth, review volumes, and the Google effect
After several quarters of softening review volumes globally, Q3 2025 marked a subtle but important turnaround. Review activity increased modestly at the global level, a recovery driven entirely by Google, which was responsible for nearly 100% of total review growth.
While Europe, Asia, and North America experienced year-over-year declines in review volume, the emerging markets, Latin America (+17%), Africa (+7.5%), and the Middle East (+4.4%), all grew substantially. Latin America alone accounted for one-third of Google’s global growth, reinforcing the search giant’s growing dominance in regions with rapidly expanding digital adoption.
Google’s growth is even more relevant when compared to Booking.com’s. Over the past 3 years, the latter experienced a 16.8% drop in review volume, not considering the growth of the sister company Agoda. The following chart clearly shows that Google is closing the review Volume gap with Booking.com, which just 3 years ago hovered around 600,000 reviews in our sample.
In line with ongoing data integrity efforts, Shiji’s Q3 Benchmark Report merged Hotels.com and Expedia reviews into a single source to reflect the reality of review duplication, ensuring more accurate trend representation across the global sample.
Operational agility: Fast responses and high expectations
One of the most notable improvements this year is the reduction in management response time. Globally, 5-star hotels now respond in an average of just 2.8 days, down from 3.7 days a year ago, a record low. However, this faster pace came with a slight reduction in engagement: hotels responded to fewer reviews overall (5-star: -1.8 pp, 4-star: -3.8 pp, 3-star: -4.1 pp).
In departmental metrics, Cleanliness was the only area to decline slightly (-0.4 percentage points YoY), driven by underperformance in Europe, North America, and Oceania. Yet, globally, other service departments maintained their positive trajectory, particularly Room Quality, Service, and Value for Money, underscoring a strong commitment to guest experience quality even as workloads intensified.
Regional performance highlights
Asia: Consistency amid slower growth
For the third consecutive year, Asia held its position as the top-performing region globally, with the highest GRI across all star categories. Although review volume fell slightly (-0.2%), largely due to a steep 31% drop in Agoda reviews, overall guest satisfaction remained exceptional.
While growth in Cleanliness (+0.5pp), Room (+0.9pp), and Service (+1.1pp) slowed, Food & Beverage (+2.1pp) and Value for Money (+1.2pp) performed strongly, suggesting hotels are finding new ways to deliver on experience even as volume stabilizes.
Europe: Positive satisfaction amid lower review activity
In Europe, the story is one of quality over quantity. Despite a 2.1% decline in review volume, guest satisfaction continued to rise, especially among 3-star hotels (+0.8 percentage points). Negative mentions dropped by 4.3%, while positive mentions decreased only slightly (-1.0%), suggesting improved guest sentiment overall.
Google (+25.3%), Trip.com (+35.9%), and Ctrip (+4.4%) stood out as the only major review sources to grow in share. Interestingly, while lower-category hotels reduced their response activity (-5.3%), 5-star properties increased their response volume by +2.2%, defying the global trend.
Latin America: The growth powerhouse
Latin America continued to shine this quarter, posting the highest GRI increase globally (+0.9pp) and a massive +17.0% growth in review volume. The region’s evolution is fueled by Google’s surge to 46% market share, up 6 percentage points from the previous quarter.
While Booking.com (-7.2%) and Tripadvisor (-1.9%) review volume declined, guest satisfaction across key categories improved, led by Cleanliness (+0.5pp) and Food & Beverage (+5.5pp). However, the rapid increase in reviews strained response rates, which dropped 9.9 percentage points compared to last year.
Africa: Operational excellence and rapid response
Africa sustained its impressive 2025 momentum, with GRI rising +0.6pp, driven by 4-star hotels (+1.0pp), and review volume up 7.5% YoY.
Google strengthened its lead (+23.9% YoY, 46.1% market share), while Tripadvisor grew 10.8%. African 5-star properties continue to demonstrate operational excellence, responding to reviews in an industry-leading 2.2 days, while also increasing total response volume by +2.8pp, making this the only region to achieve both speed and engagement growth simultaneously.
Middle East: Strong midscale growth, consistent speed
The Middle East saw continued gains across its midscale properties, with 3- and 4-star hotels both improving their GRI by +1.3pp.
Google strengthened its dominance, now holding 50% of the market share for the second consecutive quarter. Response times remain among the best globally, under 3 days across all categories, but total response engagement dropped slightly (-0.2pp). The 5-star segment grew modestly, with Room (+0.1pp) and Cleanliness (-0.1pp) showing marginal movement.
North America: Political uncertainty and guest sentiment decline
North America was the only region to record a decline across all star categories in the Net Promoter Score (NPS). Political and travel disruptions between the United States and Canada contributed to a 1.2% drop in review volume and -0.2pp decline in 5-star GRI.
Expedia remains the leading platform (40% market share), followed by a rising Google (+4.7pp to 23%). The region’s 5-star properties have the second slowest global response rate (4.2 days) after the Oceania 5-stars, and experienced decreases in both Room (-0.9 pp) and Cleanliness (-1.2 pp) department scores.
Oceania: Slow but steady improvement
Oceania experienced modest growth, with GRI up 0.3pp, partly due to a 0.2pp decline in 5-star GRI, and review volume down 1.6%. Trip.com (+45.9%) gained momentum while Tripadvisor (-24.7%) and Booking.com (-5.3pp) lost ground.
While the region continues to struggle with low response ratios (49.2% for the 5-star hotels) and long response times (5.0 days for 5-star hotels), improvements are visible, especially among 3-star hotels, which achieved a faster 3.6-day average response time. The data reflects gradual recovery and efficiency gains across midscale segments.
Data methodology & sources
The Shiji Global Guest Experience Benchmark Report aggregates millions of verified guest reviews across leading online platforms. Data for Q3 2025 was collected from the top global review sources, including Google, Booking.com, Tripadvisor, Expedia (merged with Hotels.com), Trip.com, Ctrip, Agoda, and regional review platforms.
To ensure comparability and accuracy, Shiji standardizes review data across regions and hotel categories (3-star, 4-star, and 5-star). The Global Review Index (GRI) serves as a composite indicator of online reputation, calculated from the weighted average of review scores across sources. All analysis compares Q3 2025 vs. Q3 2024, and metrics include GRI, NPS, departmental scores, review volume, response time, response ratios, and survey delivery and behavior data. The report reflects global and regional averages derived from a balanced sample of branded and independent hotels across more than 150 countries.
Conclusion: A positive trajectory in a transforming landscape
Q3 2025 continued the year’s positive trajectory. The global GRI of 87.0%, record-fast response times, and the steady rise of guest satisfaction across nearly all regions point to an industry adapting rapidly to both digital and operational challenges.
Emerging markets are turning out as the new center of gravity for online reputation, driven by Google’s expanding reach and the region’s growing digital adoption. Meanwhile, mature markets face the challenge of maintaining engagement amid fluctuating political and economic conditions.
As hotels prepare for Q4 and the close of 2025, the data suggests a clear imperative: those that combine data-driven decision-making, agile operations, and proactive guest engagement will lead the next phase of global hospitality performance.
