How to Make an Useful Review of the Accommodation

[OlgaKlein]

Let’s become the most trustworthy platform in the world on the accommodation reviews.

Let’s be better than TripAdvisor, Booking.com, Airbnb and Agoda providing the most trustworthy feedback, let’s people choose Google Maps over all of them to check the reviews and to make the right choices.

To do so, our reviews of the accommodation should be dealt and cover the most important the areas interesting for the consumers (travelers in this case).

What areas the another platform suggest evaluating?

Here we go.

Comparison analysis

The common evaluation points in all 4 services are:

1. Cleanliness
2. Location
3. Value/Value for money

The rest of evaluation indicators are about t****he comfort and the quality the room - here we mention how we liked or dislike the room and why.

And service, here could be mentioned the Staff, the customer service and an attitude to the customers. There is relevant evaluation indicator for both the accommodation and restaurants.

Google tries to show accurate, up-to-date short summaries for businesses.

A unified hotel reviews section on Google Maps on the computer shows reviews from both Google users like Local Guides and third-party providers (as below on the picture). With a consolidated list of reviews, users can make more informed decisions on hotels directly from Maps. (*)

For what I see from my location (Brazil) at the hotels´ profiles there is an option to choose the review from the dropdown list:

Therefore, I propose to justify our review when we give 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 stars using the evaluation points as above.

This is the example how I justify why I gave 4 stars to the Hotel Intercity Aeroporto Porto Alegre which immediately resulted in attracting the hotel administration’s attention and having their response (hopefully some actions in the near future as well):

https://goo.gl/maps/c1Uj27E57kQxiEuRA

Looking forward your comments

Best Regards

Olga

(*)Source:

https://support.google.com/business/answer/6088158?hl=en

[MortenCopenhagen]

Hi @OlgaKlein

Thanks for sharing your idea. I just wanted to ask you about why you included Airbnb since private homes and vacation homes without staff on premises can not be added on Google Maps. Also for privacy, I would like not to have my private home reviewed on Google Maps by Airbnb guests.

Cheers

[KishorMali]

@OlgaKlein

@MortenCopenhagen

@SaifIS

I edit this reply…

Those things I understand try to express that. You stay with your idea and it’s really good.

Location is already feature in google maps system. Now come to the point cleanliness idea already given by connect moderator @ErmesT …already it closed…

@MashaPS

@TraciC kindly give your opinion about it.

Thanks…

Stay safe…

[SaifIS]

@OlgaKlein Nice comparison. Thanks for pointing out these 3 common points in these services. I will definitely keep it in mind when reviewing a related business in the future.

Hi @MortenCopenhagen , I think she just tried to compare the points from accommodation related services. She is not recommending or suggesting to add private homes and vacation homes on Maps.

Hi @KishorMali I personally think she has not shared anything that violated the policy of any program or Google policy. It’s just a guide to rate and review better accommodation businesses. She is not promoting any business here.

[OlgaKlein]

Hi @MortenCopenhagen

Thanks for taking a time to read it.

I made the comparison analysis of the most popular platform to get better understanding what they offer their users to review after using a room or an apartment, and what next users can value. I believe that big platforms already made their market research what factors are most valuable for their users. Therefore I think we can pick up some of them to know what to pay attention when we write our reviews.

And I appreciate your comment because from point of view of adding this Airbnb places it’s useless.

I’m the Local Guide who focuses on the quality of the review and photos. I don’t add so far many business on the map.

BR

Olga

[KishorMali]

@OlgaKlein

I appreciate your idea…

Stay safe…

Thanks…

[MortenCopenhagen]

Hi @KishorMali

I have to dissagre with you. I think @OlgaKlein is raising a very legit and relevant discussion. If anything she might not have permission to use the four logos. I think that is all. And the discussion can exist perfectly without those logos.

Cheers

[OlgaKlein]

Hi @KishorMali

Thank you for being so involved into this topic.

With all the respect I don’t involve any money aspect for giving a review on Google maps as we all know and understand we are volunteering.

I think when you stay in the hotel you naturally may review a value of the room to a quality. And this is nothing wrong with this, I believe.

But of course you are level 8 and more experienced in this points.

I will consider to change this article because I didn’t expect that it will atract such a reaction in the community.

[SaifIS]

@KishorMali Nevermind, brother you are not getting this. it’s not about earning money from the Local Guides program, it’s ‘Value for money’. Whether the money we spend on a service or product worth or not is the concern here. Especially when reviewing a business or service on Maps or elsewhere. Hope this makes sense.

[OlgaKlein]

@MortenCopenhagen

I appreciate. I consider to change the picture with logos.

[MortenCopenhagen]

Hi Olga @OlgaKlein

I made my remark to help you focus the discussion. If the discussion is reserved for improving reviews of commercial lodging with publicly listed addresses then I’m completely with you.

How are you hoping to implement such improvements? Do you foresee the need for changes in how the google maps app is working or could it be less intrusive. Like some recommendations. I remember earlier posts where local guides suggested using some emojis to propose some topics that each review ideally should address.

Cheers

[KishorMali]

@OlgaKlein

@SaifIS

@MortenCopenhagen

Thanks for clearing my point of view and information.

Stay safe…

[OlgaKlein]

@MortenCopenhagen @KishorMali It is also coming to my mind from review point of view that Google Map with it’s from 1 to 5 stars very likely TripAdvisor.

Before this reviews on maps people were checking only TripAdvisor, and now Google Maps even combined the reviews for business accounts from the mentioned platforms. So you can filter them by the platform.

I also used to work in the accomodation category for one of the biggest airlines in the world as a buyer, and we always used TripAdvisor as a reference. And as a volunteer now for Local Guide Program I would like to all guides to make a useful reviews, so Google Maps could be the best references for businesses, the most truth worthy source for true feedback.

@SaifIS Thank you for understanding and support.

[OlgaKlein]

@MortenCopenhagen

Earlier at LG connect 2019 I suggested to Google moderators from London and New Your that we need to improve 5 stars system because it is very subjective now. Everyone would say only a couple of words and evaluate 1 star or 5 stars without explaining why. For another person this place could bring completely different experience, also depends on the previous experience.

For example, how to evaluate I this system British museum like 5 stars, and local small museum. Also a small museum might be the same 5 stars. But as a user I wanna know more.

Back in November I suggested to set up automatically more indicators as on TripAdvisor. And they liked the idea of setting up a system to be more specific on our reviews.

So that’s the story behind my idea improving reviews quality.

Hope it makes sence

[MortenCopenhagen]

@OlgaKlein ,

I’m not 100% sure I understand what you meant by “from review point of view that Google Map with it’s from 1 to 5 stars very likely TripAdvisor.”

But are you aware that Google Maps already did implement more specific ratings on hotels. It might not be rolled out in all areas yet.

Let me know it I should help you find a link to more info on this.

Cheers

[MortenCopenhagen]

I found the link, @OlgaKlein

https://support.google.com/business/answer/6088158?hl=en

Scroll down and tap

Hotel Review Snippets

So your efforts at CL19 were not in vain.

Cheers

[OlgaKlein]

@MortenCopenhagen

I meant that on Google maps we have a rating system from 1 to 5 stars , a d in TripAdvisor we also have from 1 to 5. But on TripAdvisor we also need to rate that indicators mentioned in my article. And on maps there are no additional evaluation factors.

Replying to second part, I have paid attention there was introduced a new option that we can see on maps the reviews from another platforms like Booking.com.

But I would like to read more about that. I appreciate if you could send me a link if you have.

Thank you for your contribution.