The Reply Is Read by the Next Guest: Review Responses at the Top of the Market

How a hotel answers its reviews moves the ratings that follow: replies to complaints lift later ratings, replies to praise lower them, and tailoring the reply to the review strengthens both effects (Wang and Chaudhry, 2018). The reason is the reader, because a specific reply to a compliment looks like the hotel promoting itself to the next guest, still deciding.

A manager’s reply sits permanently beneath the review it answers, on the page a future guest reads before booking (Proserpio and Zervas, 2017). It is addressed to someone who has already stayed and paid, and read by someone who has not. For that reader, replying pays: hotels that began replying on TripAdvisor gained about 0.12 stars and 12 percent more reviews (Proserpio and Zervas, 2017), and a one point rise on a five point scale let a hotel raise its rate 11.2 percent at constant occupancy (Anderson, 2012).

The reader is not the reviewer

In a PhoCusWright survey of more than 12,000 TripAdvisor users, run at the end of 2013, 80 percent said they read at least six to 12 reviews before choosing a hotel. Eighty-seven percent agreed that an appropriate management response to a bad review improved their impression of the hotel, and 70 percent said an aggressive or defensive response to a bad review made them less likely to book (TripAdvisor, 2014).

Those numbers are more than a decade old and come from a platform with an interest in the answer. More recent data from a different source runs in the same direction. BrightLocal’s Local Consumer Review Survey 2026, which polled 1,002 US adults about local businesses, found that 80 percent are likely to use a business that responds to all of its reviews, while 42 percent are unlikely to use one that never replies (BrightLocal, 2026).

A reply therefore does two jobs at once. It closes a conversation with one guest, and it opens a sales conversation with a stranger who has not written in and may never do so. A reply written only for the first job reads, to everyone else, like a letter addressed to someone else.

What a reply is worth, in stars and in rate

Proserpio and Zervas compared the same Texas hotels on TripAdvisor, where managers replied often, and on Expedia, where they almost never did at the time. Once hotels began replying on TripAdvisor, their ratings there rose by about 0.12 stars and their review volume by 12 percent. Hotels tended to start replying after a drop in their ratings, and they answered positive, neutral and negative reviews at roughly the same rate (Proserpio and Zervas, 2017).

A tenth of a star sounds small until it meets price. Anderson’s Cornell study estimated that a one point rise on a five point scale let a hotel raise its price 11.2 percent and keep the same occupancy or market share. A 1 percent gain in reputation score was associated with up to 0.89 percent higher average daily rate and up to 1.42 percent higher revenue per available room (Anderson, 2012).

The floor keeps rising. In 2026, 68 percent of consumers said they use only businesses rated four stars or more, up from 55 percent a year earlier, and 31 percent required 4.5 stars, up from 17 percent (BrightLocal, 2026). A luxury house is rarely fighting for the floor. It is fighting over tenths above it, and each tenth has a rate attached.

At the top of the market, a reply invites more voice

Replying is not a free tenth of a star, and the luxury tier is where the caveat bites. Chevalier, Dover and Mayzlin studied US hotels from upper midscale to luxury and found that once managers began to reply, reviewing activity rose, and negative reviewing rose most (Chevalier, Dover and Mayzlin, 2017). In their working paper, the jump in review volume was largest in the Luxury tier, the class of the Four Seasons and the Ritz-Carlton, and the large, significant drops in average rating appeared only among Luxury and Upscale hotels. Their explanation is that guests write more when they believe management is listening and can change the service.

Proserpio and Zervas saw a related effect from the other side. After hotels started replying, negative reviews became fewer but longer. The authors argue that unhappy guests become less likely to post short complaints they could not defend when they expect the hotel to scrutinize them (Proserpio and Zervas, 2017).

Read together, the two studies describe a luxury review page once the hotel starts answering: in some samples more complaints, and more detailed ones. A long, specific complaint persuades the next guest far more than a one-line grumble. The reply beneath it has to be at least as specific, and it has to show that something changed. A general apology under a complaint that names the night manager, the room and the hour looks like the template it is.

Praise needs restraint, not a template

The most useful finding for luxury teams is also the least intuitive. Wang and Chaudhry studied what hotel replies on travel websites do to the ratings that follow them, contrasting TripAdvisor, where later reviewers could see the replies, with Expedia, where they could not. Replies to negative reviews improved subsequent ratings when they were visible at the time of reviewing. Replies to positive reviews lowered them. Tailoring amplified both effects. The authors’ explanation: “by highlighting specific positive elements of a review, managers’ intent for responding is brought into question as they take advantage of reviewers’ positive feedback to promote their hotel” (Wang and Chaudhry, 2018).

A reply to praise that sells the hotel reads as an advertisement placed under someone else’s compliment.

The practical reading is plain. Answer complaints specifically, and show what changed. Keep replies to praise short.

None of this licenses a template for praise. Half of consumers say generic or templated replies put them off (BrightLocal, 2026), and a guest who wrote four paragraphs about a sommelier will notice a pasted thank-you. The care has to take a different form: thank the guest in their own terms, pass the credit to the colleague they named, and stop. Leave out the view, the spa and the tasting menu. A reply to praise that sells the hotel reads as an advertisement placed under someone else’s compliment.

Who signs, in what language, and how fast

Sparks, So and Bradley tested replies on prospective guests. Any reply beat silence, both for trust and for the sense that the hotel cared about its customers. A human, conversational voice helped, and so did a timely reply. Whether the reply came from the general manager or a guest service agent made no difference (Sparks, So and Bradley, 2016). The case for a named signature is about voice, then, not rank. A person with a name writes like a person. A department writes like a department.

On Google, the reply is published under the business name and the manager’s personal name is not shown (Google, 2026). If the reply is to be signed, the signature belongs in the text: a first name, a title, a direct line.

Language works the same way. In CSA Research’s 2020 survey of 8,709 consumers in 29 countries, 73 percent wanted product reviews in their own language, and 75 percent were more likely to buy again when customer care came in their language (CSA Research, 2020). That survey covers online shopping in general, not hotels, but the inference for a house with an international clientele is direct. A German guest’s review answered in English tells every German reader who the hotel writes for. Translation software can draft. A fluent colleague should sign.

Speed matters because the next reader is already on the page, and the benefit Wang and Chaudhry measured for replies to complaints depended on later reviewers seeing the reply. Expectations are tightening: 19 percent of consumers expect a response the same day, up from 6 percent a year earlier, 32 percent by the following day, up from 18 percent, and 81 percent within a week (BrightLocal, 2026).

Specifics carry one caution at this level of the market. Use what the guest chose to publish, never what the property system knows. A reply that mentions a room number, a companion, a medical request or a bill the reviewer left out breaks the discretion the rate is paying for. Rules on guest data differ by country, and this is a point of discretion, not legal advice.