15 years
Actually, that's kinda cool. I might mention it to them at the Hostelworld conference this year.
A quick snapshot of the number and ratings of hostels 11 large tourist cities in the USA:
I'm using Hostelworld data because WRI has the most hostels in their database. Number of reviews also includes hotels, but the numbers of properties only include hostels.
(Research inspired by Plakian, though this is just a quick snapshot looking at quality.)
New York City
New York has 55 hostels.
Los Angeles
LA has 21 hostels.
Miami
Miami has 6 hostels.
Chicago
Chicago has 4 hostels.
San Francisco
San Francisco has 14 hostels.
New Orleans
New Orleans has 4 hostels.
Boston
Boston has 2 hostels -- possibly 3 during the summer.
I don't include YMCA and YWCA as hostels, and The Prescott International Hotel and Hostel is located in Everett, Massachusetts, not Boston. I believe HI opens a second location in the summer. The two Boston hostels counted here are HI Boston and Abercrombie's Farrington Inn.
Las Vegas
Las Vegas has 3 hostels.
Honolulu
Honolulu has 4 hostels.
Seattle
Seattle has 2 hostels.
San Diego
San Diego has 8 hostels.
15 years
Actually, that's kinda cool. I might mention it to them at the Hostelworld conference this year.
15 years
Interesting that one 20% review can have such a major effect.
Well, let´s not ignore that you may get 20% with a reason sometimes. And you don´t get that many anyway - I just checked for one of our hostels which got 3072 ratings in 2008 - only 6 of them were 20% - compared to 721 times 100%.
You could argue the other way round: I bet those 6 people were really genuinely pissed off. They will tell a lot of other travellers to stay as far away from Wombats as possible. So - in reality, they could have a much bigger negative impact on our reputation than on our average rating (that´s only 0.14%). Hence, I could argue that those 20% ratings should be weighed higher.
There is no doubt that the average ratings are slightly misleading, because almost all hostels are rated between 80% and 90%. This gives the impression that the differences aren´t that big. I have talked to some guests - they told me that they don´t give too much about the average ratings, but read the reviews instead - obviously because they don´t think those ratings aren´t very meaningful.
[Anyway, people use this "sort-by-rating"-button. So the average rating is not as unimportant as people may say.]
An arithmetic average is never very meaningful. If you look at the average income in Brunei you would think that its citizens are pretty well off; in reality, only the royal family is extremely well off while all the rest isn´t.
I think the best solution would be to add one very simple question to Hostelworld´s survey email form: "Do you think this hostel was a good choice?" or "Would you recommend this hostel to other travelers?". Just two possible answers: "yes" or "no".
I think this would make quality differences between hostels much, much more obvious.
I also like that hostelworld has added the 'type' and 'country' of traveller. ... And from the management side, knowing what country someone is from is helpful too.
Can I take credit for this? I told them to display nationalities in the review reports. It is very, very interesting. :)
15 years
I think the balance of scores is probably fair, given that most hostels ARE genuinely 'good' or 'very good'. If I thought a hostel was "OK for a hostel, but nothing special, and no serious grumbles" I would probably give it 4 out of 5, so 80%. And I think I am right in saying that the minimum score you can give is 1, not 0, so 20% means that someone thinks that a hostel is worthless in every way. So a hostel with some serious complaints but not in everything is likely to get around 40-50%. What I'm trying to say is that the spread of scores may not be as skew as it looks at first sight.
It would help if (I dont know if they do) they put a descriptive scale against the scores for guidance, eg: 5: perfect, 4: OK, 3: some limitations, 2: serious faults, 1: useless.
And yes/no questions are only OK if you are allowed to not answer them. HostelBookers has 2 yes/no questions about matters that I do not know the answer to and am not interested in. They forced me to answer them. If they wont let me say "I don't know" then they wont receive their questionaire. And they didnt.
The more I think of your questions above, the more I realise that I could hardly ever answer them. My answer would always be: "Yes, but..." . And that's the whole point of the text review, to explain the buts.
15 years
I see Santa Klaus' point about the weighting, but we also need to keep in mind that people by nature, are more apt to answer a survey to complain then to compliment. Anger motivates people to action. So I think we work extra hard to make sure those who are happy say so.
I'm sure others have had the same reaction to when you get a bad review. You wonder why that person didn't come talk to management about the experience or problem they could try to fix it. Instead, the person takes out their frustration in a review.
In the end, i agree it's the comments that are the most telling. Especially those ones that are so off the wall. Like the one we recieved from someone who was unhappy that our pancake syrup was not real maple and our jam was too much sugar! I actually had to grab a bottle of jam and read the ingredients to see for myself... these always make me laugh.
15 years
I see Santa Klaus' point about the weighting, but we also need to keep in mind that people by nature, are more apt to answer a survey to complain then to compliment. Anger motivates people to action. So I think we work extra hard to make sure those who are happy say so.
Objection!
People identify with their tribe. When they go backpacking, they join the tribe of backpackers. There´s a common cause. If they discover a place they like (or dislike), they want to share that wisdom with as many other tribe members as possible. If you´re a cynic, you could argue that they do this to become a more valuable member of the tribe (hence more attractive to opposite sex tribe members!), but I think people are altruistic by nature. I don´t think you get ratings from 100% of all unhappy guests but only a fraction from the happy ones.
Apart from that, it doesn´t really matter because if you are right, all your competitors have the same problem.
I'm sure others have had the same reaction to when you get a bad review. You wonder why that person didn't come talk to management about the experience or problem they could try to fix it. Instead, the person takes out their frustration in a review.
Yes, this drives me crazy every time. But it makes sense: they are warning fellow travellers (their tribe), not you (other tribe).
Another example: how often did you tell a waiter that the food was bad? I bet less often than you warned your friends about that restaurant. You have given everyone what he deserves: good advice to your friends, less customers for the bad restaurant.
In the end, i agree it's the comments that are the most telling. Especially those ones that are so off the wall. Like the one we recieved from someone who was unhappy that our pancake syrup was not real maple and our jam was too much sugar! I actually had to grab a bottle of jam and read the ingredients to see for myself... these always make me laugh.
Ah, yes. We had a similar one recently - a complaint that the breakfast orange juice isn´t organic and fair trade. An all-you-can-eat-and-drink buffet for EUR 3.50...
15 years
IMHO ratings are relative and definitely subjective.
When guests get a feedback request, they get a 5 degree scale between absolute angry and absolute happy. When they review us and they are very happy, they will give 100%, regardless what the real experience could have been without bias. It is the same when you get 20%, it is not about the real value of your hostel, it is about personal verdicts.
When I said in another thread that ratings = satisfaction x value, I meant satisfaction as a personal happiness factor and value is the objective part of the story. I've seen 94% hostel in our city in an outer part, very basic facilities and still better rated because of the one guy who was running the place had a personality manner which kept all his guests believing he was paying attention all the time and that kept them satisfied. the satisfaction part played the major role, because the value wasn't the best...
When you have a 20% review, it is about a very angry guest. If you have an experienced staff, maybe you could set up an alarm chain, where you could take care of these people specially, during their stay. It is all about customer care. At your next staff meeting, explain your employees to listen to non-verbal signs about customer satisfaction and small feedbacks. If you ask such guest like "Is there any problem?" or "Is everything fine?", it will be appreciated even if they just had a head ache. If there's a complaint, it should not be a quick question and reply dialogue, it should be assured that the guest is happy with the solution at the end of the conversation.
Another example: how often did you tell a waiter that the food was bad?
So true... But it's the same situation as the answer to the question about "how are you? - fine, thank you".
You don't tell your problems because it is not that situation, just a formal question which needs a formal answer. They want to tell their opinion but not directly, because they have to argue about rights and wrongs then. Most people try to avoid conflicts, that's why they use the "anonymity" of reviews.
Ah, yes. We had a similar one recently - a complaint that the breakfast orange juice isn´t organic and fair trade. An all-you-can-eat-and-drink buffet for EUR 3.50...
Sounds familiar! Especially ironic because our AYCE is included in the price... not as fancy as yours but at least it's free...
I like these guests because they are so much wrong about it and I have the chance to prove it gently. So many other hostels can get into the catch and argue about it but they just don't see that it's a stage, like an Oscar ceremony and all our possible future guests are watching the program. So when something like this happens, we can use such old merchant tricks like:
"Dear guest, (1)I agree with you about the organic and fair trade orange juice is much better, but (2)we also had to consider about the budget of our travelers and we didn't want to increase the price of our AYCE breakkie because this element. (1)I do apologize for this failure and hopefully if the fair trade price will be considerable for our budget tourists or we have many feedbacks about this request even if we have to increase the price of our breakfast, (3)we will immediately take action.
"
Important response elements:
(1) The customer is right,
(2) Clarifying that we have a reason,
(3) We also have a solution which is either in progress already or we didn't want to get into it because we do take care of our guests.
The more ridiculous problem it is, the more funny answers we can give...
15 years
When you have a 20% review, it is about a very angry guest. If you have an experienced staff, maybe you could set up an alarm chain, where you could take care of these people specially, during their stay.
I would say, in most cases it´s really a small thing escalating into a silly argument. A guest wants something but does not get it. When somebody comes round at 3am and asks for another room because there´s an asshole room mate, it makes a big difference if you say "no" and continue surfing the web or if you care to explain why it´s a "no" - e.g. because all beds are occupied. You won´t get 20% if the staffer makes an honest effort to solve the problem... somehow.
15 years
I would say, in most cases it´s really a small thing escalating into a silly argument. A guest wants something but does not get it. When somebody comes round at 3am and asks for another room because there´s an asshole room mate, it makes a big difference if you say "no" and continue surfing the web or if you care to explain why it´s a "no" - e.g. because all beds are occupied. You won´t get 20% if the staffer makes an honest effort to solve the problem... somehow.
Right. So if the staff will be trained to at least they have a willing to solve problems, instead of causing frustration to some guests, it will help a lot avoiding 20% reviews. On the other hand, staff has to be motivated for thinking. If the reception doesn't know how to solve a problem, they should have someone behind who knows, etc. Same with the "alarm chain", if someone on reception can't solve a problematic guest's request, there should be a senior, who can handle it. The willing helps a lot indeed.
15 years
Sometimes staffers think they aren´t allowed to hand out a freebie or give a discount or a refund. A little bribe can straighten out a lot of problems. You have to make it very clear to your staff that you prefer to be set back a few Euros over having an unhappy guest.
15 years
I think the best solution would be to add one very simple question to Hostelworld´s survey email form: "Do you think this hostel was a good choice?" or "Would you recommend this hostel to other travelers?". Just two possible answers: "yes" or "no".
I think this would make quality differences between hostels much, much more obvious.
Good idea...
I just saw this on AT&T's site today:
Related Pages
Log in to join discussion