When it comes to having a good hotel ratings Viola Engel of the review app, Customer Alliance says that reaching out to customers after their stay to leave a review is an important part of getting your hotel’s rating up on both your own and third party review sites.

“Not all guests write reviews,” Engel said at Berlin’s ITB Convention. “It is usually only the ones who are very happy with their stay or the ones who are very upset.

If you direct clients to third party sites to leave reviews then you are more likely to get a higher rating, because most people will be content with their stay.”

As far as ways to ensure that more reviews will be positive, the review specialist says that pre-stay e-mails can play a large role, because they can cut down on confusion during the stay.

“Pre-stay communication definitely helps you collect more positive reviews, because you then have informed guests that knew exactly where to reach out to if there is a problem,” Engel said.

She also warned against focusing too much on either third party review sites or reviews on your own website, because the former will probably be more widely read, but the latter will improve SEO scores and make a hotel more visible on third party review sites.

“The importance of certain portals depend on region but Google and trip adviser are most important across the board,” Engel said.

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