Starwood Hotels and Resorts has added the ability for guests to leave reviews of its hotels directly on its website, with criteria including room comfort, cleanliness and SPG recognition.
The new service allows guest who have stayed at any Starwood property in the last 18 months to leave a review. When clicking on the Reviews tab on a particular hotel, guests are able to read existing reviews, or add new ones by inputting their SPG account number or reservation number to verify their stay.
Guests will then be able to post ratings and reviews based on a variety of criteria including: Overall Rating, Room Comfort, Staff Met My Needs, Room Cleanliness and SPG Recognition. There is also the option to share reviews through social media channels including personal and Starwood facebook pages.
Starwood says that a recent survey of its SPG members showed that 85 per cent “find value in consumer ratings and reviews on travel sites”. The group added that the forum will allow travellers to “share and search for genuine hotel reviews – both the positive and the negative – so they can plan their ideal hotel stay”.
The challenge will be to encourage guests to opt to post review on its own website, rather than established hotel reviews giant Tripadvisor. Last year hotel group Accor added Tripadvisor reviews of its properties to its website at accorhotels.com (see online news October 26, 2010).
For more information visit starwoodhotels.com.
Report by Mark Caswell
