In short
- Guests mostly remember the peak and the end of their stay. Arrival and departure deserve more attention than they usually get.
- Online reputation directly affects the price you can charge. Replying to reviews is part of the experience.
- Most improvements need no investment - just clear standards and a team that knows them.
A hotel doesn’t sell a room. It sells how someone feels from the first message to the drive home. The room is only one of those moments - an important one, but rarely the one guests tell their friends about.
This guide is written for owners and managers of small hotels, guesthouses and boutique properties. It doesn’t assume a sophisticated booking system or a renovation budget. It only assumes you look at the stay end to end, from the guest’s point of view.
Why it matters, in money
A study by the Cornell School of Hotel Administration (Chris Anderson, 2012) found that a 1-point increase in review score on a 5-point scale allowed a hotel to raise its price by 11.2% without losing occupancy. The same study associated a 1% increase in online reputation score with up to a 1.42% increase in revenue per available room (RevPAR).
The data is from the US and a few years old, and the relationship is a correlation, not a guarantee. But the direction is clear: the experience today’s guests have becomes the price tomorrow’s guests are willing to pay.
Before arrival: the experience starts in the inbox
1. A confirmation that sounds human
The platform’s automatic confirmation is not a welcome. Two or three days before arrival, send a short, personal message: who will be expecting them, check-in time, how to get there, where to park, and a phone number someone actually answers.
2. Ask one thing
“Are you coming for a special occasion?” or “Is there anything you need for the room?” One open question gives you material for a personal gesture - and shows the guest they were noticed before they arrived.
3. Remove the surprises
Tourist taxes, deposits, restaurant hours, key-card access after 11 pm: anything that could become an unpleasant surprise at reception is said in advance. Save good surprises for arrival; bad ones have no place there.
Arrival: the first five minutes
4. The guest is greeted by name
Reception knows who is arriving that day. “Welcome, Mrs Jones, we’ve been expecting you” sets the tone for the whole stay. If the guest has to wait, someone acknowledges them and says how long it will be.
5. Check-in is not a form
Prepare the paperwork in advance, ask only for what’s missing and explain three things: breakfast, Wi-Fi, and who to call if they need anything. Everything else can go in a room guide.
6. The room checked through the guest’s eyes
A room checklist completed by someone who sits on the bed, switches on the bedside lamps, tries the shower and the socket by the bed. The details a guest notices in the first ten minutes are the ones that end up in the review.
During the stay: few moments, well chosen
7. A 30-second check-in
On the first evening or morning, someone asks: “Is everything all right with your room?” A problem discovered then is solved with a room change. The same problem discovered in a review can no longer be solved.
8. Breakfast is a touchpoint, not just a meal
It is often the only time guests interact with the team outside reception. A greeting, timely refills and a local recommendation do more than a bigger buffet.
9. Autonomy for the team
Decide what anyone on the team can do, without approval, to fix a problem: a coffee on the house, a late check-out, a room change. When every issue has to be escalated to the owner, the guest waits - and remembers the wait.
Departure and after: the ending stays
Research on memory by Kahneman and colleagues shows that people judge an experience in retrospect mostly by its most intense moment and by how it ended - the so-called peak–end rule. For a hotel, that makes check-out more than a formality: it is the last scene of the film.
10. Frictionless check-out
A correct, ready invoice with no unannounced charges. “How was your stay?” asked with real interest, not in passing. Help with luggage, a tip for the road, a “We hope to see you again”.
11. A message after departure
The day after check-out: a thank-you, a link to leave a review and an address to write to if something wasn’t right. Don’t ask only for good reviews - ask for honest feedback and act on it.
12. Reply to reviews
A study of tens of thousands of TripAdvisor reviews (Proserpio & Zervas, Marketing Science, 2017) found that hotels that started replying to reviews received on average 12% more reviews, and their ratings rose by an average of 0.12 stars. We have written a separate guide on replying to reviews.
Exercise for this week: read your last 30 reviews and note every moment of the stay guests mention - positive or negative. The moments that come up most often are the ones guests remember. Start there.
What isn’t worth doing
- Investing in “wow” before the basics. A welcome gift doesn’t make up for a weak shower or a reception desk that doesn’t answer the phone.
- Asking only for five-star reviews. Filtering feedback leaves you without the information you need most - and may break platform rules.
- Writing standards you don’t train. A manual in a drawer changes nothing. Standards work when the team practises them and someone follows them up.
Guests don’t remember the whole stay. They remember how you made them feel in a few moments. Choose those moments on purpose.
- Anderson C. K. (2012). The Impact of Social Media on Lodging Performance. Cornell Hospitality Report, 12(15). Cornell Center for Hospitality Research. Source ↗
- Proserpio D., Zervas G. (2017). Online Reputation Management: Estimating the Impact of Management Responses on Consumer Reviews. Marketing Science, 36(5), 645–665. Source ↗
- Redelmeier D. A., Katz J., Kahneman D. (2003). Memories of colonoscopy: a randomized trial. Pain, 104(1–2), 187–194. (The peak–end rule.) Source ↗
