Platforms
Booking.com, TripAdvisor or Google: which hotel reviews actually move bookings
They are not four versions of the same score. They are four different questions, asked of four different people.
Justin Ciappara
Co-founder, Revify9 min read
Most properties treat their review platforms as one job with four inboxes. It is closer to four jobs. The scores are not comparable, the guests are not the same people, and the moment each one is read sits at a different point in the booking.
Four scores, four different questions
Before deciding where to spend effort, it helps to be clear about what each number is actually measuring.
| Platform | Who can review | Scale | Read at which moment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anyone with a Google account | 1 to 5 | Shortlisting, often before your site is seen | |
| Booking.com | Confirmed, completed stays only | 1 to 10, sub-scored | Mid-booking, comparing two properties |
| TripAdvisor | Anyone claiming a stay | 1 to 5, plus a local rank | Research, and by press and operators |
| Facebook, Instagram | Anyone, as comments | No score | Continuously, often as questions |
That table explains most of the confusion properties have about their own numbers. A hotel sitting at 8.6 on Booking.com and 4.1 on Google has not been judged inconsistently. It has been judged by different people, on different scales, answering different questions.
Google: the one that decides whether you are considered
Google is first because it is upstream of everything else. Its rating feeds Maps, the local pack and the knowledge panel that appears when somebody searches your name. A traveller filtering for four stars and above in a city is using Google’s number, and a property below that line is removed from the list before anything else about it is known.
The important property of Google reviews is that anyone can leave one. That cuts both ways. It means a person who never stayed can review you, which feels unfair and occasionally is. It also means your restaurant diners, your spa visitors, your wedding guests and people who merely asked for directions can all contribute, which is a much larger pool than Booking.com will ever give you.
Booking.com: the one that reflects your actual guests
Booking.com only surveys guests who completed a stay booked through Booking.com. That makes it the most representative score you have of the experience you actually delivered, and the least useful one for changing quickly.
Two things follow. First, scores cluster: the ten point scale with sub-scores for cleanliness, staff, comfort, value, facilities and location produces results bunched between about 7.5 and 9.2, so a tenth of a point carries more meaning than it appears to. Second, the sub-scores are the most directly operational data any platform gives you, because the platform has already done the categorisation that you would otherwise need sentiment analysis to produce.
If your Booking.com cleanliness sub-score is drifting while the others hold, that is a housekeeping conversation with evidence attached, and it needs no interpretation at all.
TripAdvisor: the one people quote
TripAdvisor’s influence varies enormously by market. In a tourist city it is still where a certain kind of traveller starts, and the local ranking gets quoted in press, on tour operator sheets and in your own marketing. In a business district or a residential neighbourhood it matters much less than the attention it receives.
The honest test is your own booking data. If guests arrive through research and planning, TripAdvisor is doing work. If they arrive through search and Maps, Google is doing the work and TripAdvisor is mostly a mirror.
Facebook and Instagram: the ones with no score at all
Neither produces a star rating, which is exactly why they get ignored, and exactly why they are underrated. A comment asking whether you have parking, whether the pool is heated in March, or whether you can seat a party of twelve is not feedback. It is a booking enquiry that happens to be public, and it decays in hours.
Social comments also behave differently from reviews in one important way: they are visible to the asker’s own network. An unanswered question sits under your post where the next person sees both the question and the silence.
Where to spend a limited amount of effort
Assume you have ten minutes a day, which is what most properties actually have.
- Answer everything negative, everywhere, first. Platform does not matter here. An unanswered complaint is the most expensive thing on any of these pages.
- Answer social comments next. They decay fastest and they are the most likely to be a live sales question.
- Put your collection effort into Google. Largest eligible pool, fastest to move, most upstream. See how to get more Google reviews.
- Read Booking.com sub-scores monthly. Not daily. They move slowly and they are the closest thing to a free operational audit you will get.
- Check TripAdvisor rank quarterly, unless you are in a tourist market, in which case treat it like Google.
The reason most properties do not follow an order like this is not that they disagree with it. It is that four platforms mean four logins, and the one with the nicest app wins the attention by default. That is the entire argument for putting them in one list, and it is a smaller argument than most software makes for itself.
Common questions
Which review site is most important for hotels?
Google, because it decides whether a property appears at all. Its rating feeds Maps, the local pack and the knowledge panel, which is where most travellers form a shortlist. Booking.com matters more for conversion once someone is already in a booking journey, and TripAdvisor matters most in tourist markets and in press coverage.
Why is my Booking.com score different from my Google score?
They measure different populations on different scales. Booking.com surveys only confirmed, completed stays and scores out of ten across several sub-categories, which tends to cluster results in a narrow band. Google accepts a review from anyone with an account, on a five point scale, which produces a wider spread and more extreme scores at both ends.
Should hotels reply to reviews on every platform?
Reply to every negative review everywhere you are able to. Reply access varies: Google and Booking.com both allow owner responses, while some platforms restrict or delay them. Where you cannot reply directly, the reply still matters for the platforms where you can, because the same traveller usually checks more than one.
Do TripAdvisor rankings still matter?
In tourist-heavy markets, yes, and in press and tour operator selection particularly. In a residential or business district it matters considerably less than Google. Judge it by whether your actual guests arrive through research or through search, which your booking data already tells you.