Turn guests into ambassadors
What Do Guests Think?
Olery Report: The online reputation of Belgian hotels – May 2011 to April 2012
www.olery.com
May 9, 2012
Ghent
About Olery
Olery helps turn customers into ambassadors. The company offers easy-to-use tools for the leisure and hospitality
industry that provide insight into online reputation and social media presence by monitoring what is being said online,
engaging with customers, and measuring satisfaction performance. The Olery suite of comprehensive products and
easy-to-use tools for the leisure and hospitality industry intuitively turn real-time guest feedback, online reviews and
social media feedback into actionable business intelligence.
Our customers use Olery Feedback, Olery Reputation, Olery Groups, and the Olery Review Sites Database to track the
success of operational improvements, to develop new marketing channels via social media, to provide better customer
service, and to drive incremental revenue.
Follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, contact us or visit www.olery.com to learn more.
Cover image credit: © Tourist Office Flanders-Brussels
Introduction
There are very industries that have experienced more change in their business as a direct
result of the rise of the Internet more than the travel industry has. The percentage of
online hotel bookings rose to no less than 53.5% in 20111, and guests also trust more and
more on online reviews in buying decisions2.
Given this, reviews from guests on the sites of Online Travel Agents (OTA) are getting
more and more important. The number of reviews per hotel in Belgium follows this
global trend. This report includes the online reputation of Belgian hotels from May 2011
to April 2012.
The major highlights are:
•
The amount of reviews on two big online review sites in Belgium grew by more than
215% in 2011, and has shown an average annual growth rate of more than 100% over
the past 10 years. In 2012, Olery estimates that every hotel in Belgium will have an
average of around 300 online reviews - or an average of nearly one review per day.
•
In 2001, there were only 13 hotels in total that had been reviewed online. By the end
of 2011, the number increased to 1436 hotels reviewed on two major review sources
in Belgium.
•
According to reviews on Zoover and Booking.com, the best-rated hotel in Belgium
is the Main Street Hotel in Ieper, a small town in the southeast of Belgium. Guests
gave the small boutique hotel an average rating of 98.03 in 105 reviews the past 12
months.
•
The five highest rated cities in Belgium are Brussels, Bruges, Antwerp, Ostend and
Ghent. It is clear that Brussels, being the capital and host of the European Union, has
the largest share of reviews. But in terms of quality, Brussels has the lowest average
review rating of these cities. Ghent is the highest rated city of these five.
•
Semantic text analysis revealed by the sentiment analysis tool in Olery Reputation
showed that people spoke more positively than negatively in their reviews of Belgian
hotels. Just over a half (50.78%) of all discussed topics were mentioned in a positive
way, 35.15% were mentioned in a negative way, and 14.07% were mentioned in a
neutral way.
•
Only hotels with more than five rooms were included in this report in order to
exclude the many bed and breakfasts that were in our data. It is important to
mention that a lot of bed and breakfasts scored very high however, and would have
competed in the higher rankings in this study.
1.
eTrak Study, http://www.travelclick.com/information-center/bookings-by-channel.cfm (May 8, 2012)
2.
Market Metrix, http://www.marketmetrix.com/en/default.aspx?s=research&p=MoreImportantThanLocation (May 8, 2012)
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Olery Publication - Belgian Hotels
Average number of reviews per
hotel
The chart below shows that hotels in Belgium had an average of slightly less than
200 reviews per hotel on average in 2011. Given this trend, it is expected that hotels in
Belgium will have approximately 300 reviews on average in 2012. This a number to be
taken seriously in light of the growing importance of online reputation.
Average number of reviews per hotel year-on-year in Belgium
400
350
298.8
300
250
200
199.5
150
100
50
0
0.5
1.6
3.6
4.6
6
8.5
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
11.7
2007
53.2
63.2
2009
2010
30.2
2008
2011
2012
Estimate
Year-on-year growth
The following table clearly shows how peer reviews in Belgium have exploded over the
course of the past several years. In 2001, there were only 13 hotels in total that had been
reviewed online. By the end of 2011, the number increased to 1436 hotels reviewed on
two major review sources in Belgium.
Year
Number
of hotels
reviewed
online
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
13
37
100
184
387
472
629
765
787
868
1436
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Olery Publication - Belgian Hotels
Top 10 hotels
Ultimately, the first question that arises in a study based on online reviews is what
hotel scored highest. Hence, we start this study with the top 10 best scoring hotels.
Surprisingly, there is not a luxury five-star hotel ranked among the top 10.
Top 10 hotels in Belgium on average review rating
Rank
Hotel
1
Main Street Hotel - Ieper
2
Hotel Prinsenhof - Bruges
3
‘t Hemelhuys - Hasselt
93.55
4
Dusk Till Dawn / The Red Spot - Mechelen
93.53
5
Hotel Eifelland - Bütgenbach
6
Hotel Moon Eat and Sleep - Sint-Niklaas
7
Hotel Le Point de Vue - Chiny
8
Hotel De la Paix - Poperinge
92.48
9
Gastenverblijf De Arend - Nieuwpoort
92.38
10
Fleur de Lys - Zedelgem
98.03
94.98
93.45
93.10
92.86
92.90
92.21
90
91
92
92.97
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
According to reviews on Zoover and Booking.com, the best rated hotel in Belgium is the
Main Street Hotel in Ieper, a small town in the southeast of Belgium. Guests gave the
small boutique hotel an average rating of 98.03 in 105 reviews the past 12 months.
The Hotel Prinsenhof, a 19-room boutique hotel in the center of the medieval city of
Bruges, ranks second in the overall top ten with an average guest rating of 92.97 out of
326 reviews.
The third best-rated hotel in Belgium is ‘t Hemelhuys with a ranking of 93.55 based on
73 reviews. The ‘t Hemelhuys hotel is something between a bed and breakfast and a
boutique hotel in the center of Mechelen.
It is interesting to note that the top 10 hotels only have a combined total of just 84
rooms. One can see that the small boutique hotels and bed and breakfast type of
accommodations are the highest rated in the country – even with an average of just 8.4
rooms per hotel.
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Olery Publication - Belgian Hotels
Reviews per topic
The semantic text analysis ability of Olery Reputation enables us to detect what guests
write about in their reviews, and we can also trace if the topics are mentioned in a
negative or positive way. This enables us to see what hotel properties guests are positive
and/or negative about in Belgium, in general.
Performance of Belgium hotels on review topics
18.273
-8.376
location
38.648
rooms
-12.514
38.639
-7.420 service
-8.067
-6.307
-5.603
35.169
food
33.303
facilities
20.374
value
15.747
-3.886 cleanliness
-3.905
-3.684
-20.000
-10.000
14.027
hotel
beds
0
13.320
11.291
10.000
20.000
30.000
40.000
Location is the most discussed topic in hotel reviews in the Belgium, and most of the
time it is discussed in a positive sense. Rooms and service are also both topics that are
elaborately discussed on online review sites. Although the majority of the mentions are
positive, guests are most likely to complain about the rooms. Among the most commonly
discussed subjects, beds is the least mentioned subject – both in positive and neutral
sense.
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Olery Publication - Belgian Hotels
Performance per city
The five most often reviewed cities in Belgium are Brussels, Bruges, Antwerp, Ostend
and Ghent. It is clear that Brussels, being the capital and host of the European Union, has
the largest hotel capacity and therefore also the highest share of reviews. But in terms of
quality, Brussels has the lowest average review rating of these cities.
The top five most often rated Belgian cities
77.6
Rank
Rating
City
# of reviews
1
76.7
Brussels
95144
2
81.3
Bruges
40231
3
78.8
Antwerp
32460
4
77.6
Ostend
12237
5
83.2
Ghent
6918
78.8
81.3
83.2
76.7
The highest rated city is Ghent, scoring almost 6.5 points higher than Belgium’s capital.
Ghent also has the least reviews in number.
The second largest city in Belgium – Antwerp – is rated third among the top five most
often reviewed cities in Belgium.
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Olery Publication - Belgian Hotels
Hotels per star rating
An interesting finding revealed by this study is the big difference in rating between the
different stars. The more stars a hotel carries, the more likely it is that the hotel is rated
higher. Only the two-star category shows a drop in average review rating compared to its
predecessor.
Average rating per hotel star rating
83.5
79.4
78.2
76.6
77.1
0
25
50
75
100
The five-star category really stands out from the rest. With an average rating of 83.53, it is
clear that people really appreciate the luxury hotels in Belgium.
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All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
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Olery Publication - Belgian Hotels
Methodology
This study is based on hotel reviews in Belgium published on Booking.com and Zoover.
We made use of Olery Reputation for analyzing these reviews and re-calculated all
scores on a 0-100 scale.
• 1391 hotels in Belgium with a minimum of 50 reviews are included in the study
• Total reviews in study: 316,159
• Hotel reviews written between May 1, 2011 and April 30, 2012
• Only hotels with five or more rooms are included in the study
Disclaimer
This document contains information based on online data that has been gathered by
Olery. The data contained in this report is built from public review information. While
every effort has been made to insure the accuracy and reliability of the data contained in
this report, Olery makes no representation, warranty or guarantee in connection with this
report, and hereby expressly disclaims any liability or responsibility for loss or damage
resulting from use of this data.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License, “Attribution NoncommercialShare Alike 3.0 Netherlands”. The Creative Commons License enables you to use, copy,
spread, and build upon this work non-commercially, as long as you credit Olery, and
license your new creations under the identical terms. Charts contained in this report may
be reproduced for publication, however they may not be modified in any way without
the prior written consent of Olery.
Olery ©2012, some rights reserved.
All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
9
About Olery
Olery helps turn customers into ambassadors. The company offers easy-to-use tools for the leisure and hospitality industry that
provide insight into online reputation and social media presence by monitoring what is being said online, engaging with customers,
and measuring satisfaction performance. The Olery suite of comprehensive products and easy-to-use tools for the leisure and
hospitality industry intuitively turn real-time guest feedback, online reviews and social media feedback into actionable business
intelligence.
Our customers use Olery Feedback, Olery Reputation, Olery Groups, and the Olery Review Sites Database to track the success of
operational improvements, to develop new marketing channels via social media, to provide better customer service, and to drive
incremental revenue.
Olery Reputation
Olery Feedback
A set of tools designed to collect and assess guest experiences
in real-time. Olery Reputation evaluates the online reputation
of a hotel by extracting information from review sites and social
media so hotel operators know in real-time what guests say
about their hotel - and their competitor’s - and can engage
guests and influence positive reviews.
A pioneering technique to obtain feedback from guests in
real-time. Olery Feedback is the world’s first on-site feedback
tool that lets hospitality and leisure companies easily solicit
real-time feedback from guests in just 30 seconds, and removes
many of the challenges that are typically associated with getting
guest feedback from traditional paper comment cards or online
surveys sent post-visit.
Olery Groups
Olery Review Sites Database
A unique way for those in the hospitality and leisure industry to
measure and compare the online reputation of groups of service
providers side-by-side. Whether it’s all hotels within your
group (i.e., head office hotel groups) or all hotels or restaurants
within a certain city (i.e., tourism agencies, etc.), Olery Groups
automatically collects reviews and ratings of guests on more
than 100 social, review and booking websites, and lets managers
compare performance, benchmark and analyze competition.
A free online information repository that enables hospitality
companies to leverage their online reputation and presence.
The Olery Review Sites Database provides details on over 100
international review and social community websites in one
place including TripAdvisor, Booking.com, Hotels.com, Expedia,
Zoover, and more.
Follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, contact us visit www.olery.com to learn more
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