While winning the Expo 2020 is a good news for Dubai, things aren't looking very impressive when it comes to Dubai hotel reviews for the year 2013, reveals a study by TrustYou.
The study says that the year 2013 attracted more hotel reviews compared to last year, however, review scores of 2013 are marginally low compared to 2012.
Review scores are based on TrustScore, TrustYou’s aggregate score out of 100, pulling from all reviews written worldwide.
The company analyzed more than 45,000 reviews of hotels in Dubai from 250+ websites.
Increase in number of reviews
A total of 45, 312 hotel reviews were written in 2013, compared to the 2012's value of 28, 597. This is a 59% increase compared to last year.
Booking.com is the top source on which travellers write reviews, the site attracted 21, 525 hotel reviews in 2013.
TripAdvisor is the second top source, and it is growing at a rapid pace with an 80% increase in number of reviews (compared to 2012).
These top two websites form the majority of hotel review sources.
NB: "Other" indicate reviews from one of the other 250+ sources that TrustYou tracks.
Decrease in 5-star reviews
While overall review scores remain relatively unchanged (89.7 in 2013 vs. 89.9 in 2012), hotels in Dubai are receiving fewer 5-star reviews (35%) compared to 2012 (38%). This might be due to the increasing influence of trust in reviews.
While people plan their travel, they read reviews from fellow travellers and set expectations accordingly, making it more difficult for hotels to really surprise and ‘wow’ guests.
Increase in management response rate
Management response rates for 2013 stands at 44%, compared to 39% in 2012. This 13% increase in management response rate sends travellers a clear sign that they are being heard.
This may eventually lead to an improvement in TrustScores for Dubai hotels in the near future; engaging guests directly helps build credibility and trust among travellers reading reviews.
Wifi and price are painpoints
The study also indicated that hotel guests are least satisfied with hotel Internet and hotel prices in Dubai. An another TrustYou study reports that hotel wifi is one of the most discussed feature online.
Trust scores for 'hotel Internet' and 'hotel price' are reduced by 8% and 5.4% respectively compared to the values in 2012.
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NB: Five star image via Shutterstock.