How to improve your hotel's ranking on Tripadvisor

This is OneHorizyn's own guide, written from Tripadvisor's pages for business owners. Tripadvisor names four things:

• Quality: the bubble ratings guests give with their reviews. All else being equal, a hotel with more 5-bubble ratings ranks above one with lower ratings.
• Recency: recent reviews count for more than older ones, good or bad, because they say more about a stay today. Older reviews still show on your page and in your review history.
• Quantity: you need enough reviews for Tripadvisor to compare you with confidence. Beyond that, more reviews alone don't put you higher: Tripadvisor's own example is that a business with 1,000 reviews isn't necessarily above one with 500 received over about the same time.
• Consistency: a hotel with steadily good reviews ranks above one with a similar number of good and poor ones, and a large number of recent reviews counts for more than reviews several years old.

Tripadvisor sums it up in three lines: good reviews are better than poor ones, recent reviews weigh more than older ones, and more reviews build confidence faster.

• The ranking compares you with the other hotels in your area, so their new reviews move you too. As one hotel rises, the hotels around it move.
• Tripadvisor says a single review, good or bad, doesn't necessarily change your place.
• It is worked out again every day, from all published reviews, including those that arrived that day.
• Tripadvisor changed the ranking in 2016 and 2018 to make it more consistent, so that it reflects how a hotel does against others nearby over time, whatever its size or how fast it collects reviews.

• Your replies to reviews, which Tripadvisor calls management responses.
• Anything you buy from Tripadvisor. It says a hotel's commercial relationship with it has no effect at all on the ranking, and that showing availability, a website link or a phone number has never been part of it.
• The separate scores for cleanliness, service and the rest, which inform travellers but aren't in the calculation.
• Insider tips, the short notes guests can leave without a rating.

Replies still matter to the people deciding whether to book: Tripadvisor says a prompt, professional reply that answers both the complaints and the praise in a review can make a big impact on them.

Your bubble rating sums up the overall ratings guests give when they write a review, on a scale of 1 to 5, where 3 is average and 5 is excellent. It is the quality part of the ranking. Tripadvisor gives two ways to raise it: use what guests say in reviews to improve their stay, and collect more reviews. It isn't your star rating, which comes from a third party and describes your facilities.

Tripadvisor says the way to improve your place over time is to keep collecting new reviews that reflect service and value meeting guests' expectations. Its own suggestions for hotels:

• Train the front desk to ask at check-out, and to explain how much a review helps.
• Put stickers and cards with a link or QR code to your page in the lobby and other shared spaces, while guests are still with you.
• Add a line asking for a review to an email you already send, such as the check-out email with the receipt.
• Send a follow-up email within 72 hours of check-out, while the stay is fresh.
• Mail a thank-you note or postcard with the link or QR code, for guests you want to see again.

To order the free stickers:

1. 1Sign in to the Management Center.
2. 2Click Promo Tools & Awards in the menu.
3. 3Open Window stickers and order the two stickers. The “Review us on Tripadvisor” sticker has a QR code that opens your page.

Under Website widgets in the same place, the Write-A-Review widget lets visitors start a review from your own website. Tripadvisor's article on free review tools also names Review Express, which sends guests an email asking them to review you.

Asking is encouraged. What Tripadvisor's review guidelines don't allow a hotel to do:

• Offer or promise anything for a review, whatever its rating: Tripadvisor's examples include free drinks, discounts, entry into a contest and a donation in the guest's name.
• Gate reviews: send happy guests to Tripadvisor and unhappy ones somewhere else. If a survey leads to Tripadvisor, the way to post a good review and a bad one must be identical.
• Reward staff for reviews, such as a bonus for being named in one or a contest for the most reviews in a month.
• Write reviews for guests, create accounts for them, watch them while they write, or suggest words to use.
• Pressure a guest into reviewing, or hold back any part of the service until they do.
• Stop guests, in a contract or a policy, from posting critical reviews. Tripadvisor puts a warning badge on the page of a hotel that does, until it stops.
• Review your own hotel, or have staff, past staff, friends or relatives of the owner or staff, or suppliers do it.
• Review other hotels nearby: Tripadvisor doesn't accept reviews from owners or staff of a business of the same kind in the same town or within 16 kilometres.
• Buy, sell or swap reviews, offer anything for a review to be removed, or press a guest to remove one.

• Its ranking may drop, so that it shows, in Tripadvisor's words, on the fourth page of results instead of the first.
• It can no longer win Travelers' Choice awards, appear in Top 10 lists or be named in Tripadvisor's press releases.
• A large red notice may appear on its page, telling travellers that its reviews are suspicious.
• Tripadvisor adds that breaking its guidelines may also break the law in some countries, with civil or criminal penalties.

The rule works the other way too: a guest who threatens a bad review to get something they aren't owed is blackmailing you in Tripadvisor's terms. Report the review from the Management Center's chat with the complete, unedited messages.

Because recent reviews weigh most, the stay guests have this month matters more than anything from years ago. Read your lower ratings from the past few months, count what they are about, and fix the complaint that comes up most before the next guests arrive. Check that your listing says what guests find: a facility marked on your page that guests say wasn't there is flagged in the Management Center, and Tripadvisor ties good reviews to service and value that meet guests' expectations. It also says that missing details may cost a hotel a Travelers' Choice award.

Every year Tripadvisor gives Travelers' Choice awards, based on reviews and ratings from the past 12 months, and announces them between May and September by email. To be eligible, a hotel must:

• Have been listed on Tripadvisor for at least 12 months.
• Have received a set number of reviews in the period the award covers.
• Keep its bubble rating at or above a set minimum.

Tripadvisor can also leave a hotel out over serious safety incidents, discrimination by staff or management, its animal welfare practices, or breaking its content rules, such as fake reviews or intimidating reviewers.

Old reviews stay on your page, but they count for less as they age, so steady new reviews matter more than the old ones. Tripadvisor removes all older reviews only in two cases: a change of owner, or a major renovation with structural changes, each proved with documents through the Management Center's chat. Both are permanent, and Tripadvisor warns they may affect your ranking (see the guide to Tripadvisor for hotel owners).