How to Master Hotel Reputation Management in 2025? 7 Steps

Hilton is the most recognizable hotel brand in the world. But popularity doesn’t always go hand in hand with reputation. Its direct competitors in the hospitality industry – Marriott and Hyatt – enjoy a lower negative sentiment. And that’s a thing! Let’s make it clear – Hilton may be the most well-known, but reputation isn’t just about name recognition — it’s about what people say after their stay. That’s exactly what hotel reputation management helps uncover and improve.

Hotel reputation management is the art of understanding and shaping what guests say about your brand.

It combines listening — through monitoring reviews and mentions — and proactive improvements, such as responding to feedback, providing exceptional guest experiences, and encouraging satisfied guests to speak up.

What is Hotel Reputation Management? 

Hotel reputation management is the process of control y improving how people feel about a particular hotel or the whole hotel brand.

• Supervisión involves tracking and analyzing guest reviews, social media mentions, and other places where people talk about the hotel, both online and offline.
• Improving involves building the hotel’s reputation by responding to guest reviews, solving problems mentioned by visitors, encouraging them to share positive experiences publicly, and working on a strong hotel’s online presence.

So, while monitoring involves listening carefully to what guests say, improving involves taking action based on that feedback.

Okay, and what’s the purpose?

A positive online reputation for hotels is important because it:

• Impacts booking decisions – according to a Tripadvisor study, 81% of travelers always read reviews before booking a hotel;
• Genera confianza – the same study claims that 4 out of 5 guests considering two options would reserve a room at the hotel with a higher rating;
• Increases the revenue – Cornell study discovered that a one-point increase in review score (i.e., from 3.5 to 4.5) can increase the revenue by 11.2%.

Hotel Reputation Management Strategy

Step 01: Monitor multiple channels

People discuss and give feedback on things elsewhere – social media platforms, forums like Reddit, review sites such as TripAdvisor, and even their blogs.

Discussing hotels is no exception.

No matter where the guest feedback appears, it always impacts the hotel’s online reputation.

One popular Reddit discussion can damage it. One viral Instagram reel can boost it significantly.

Por lo tanto, un multichannel approach is a must if you care about effective reputation management.

By tracking and analyzing what people say about your hotel elsewhere, you’ll always be up-to-date with guest satisfaction issues, ready to address them promptly, and building your hotel’s positive reputation.

Okay, but how to monitor multiple channels?

La forma más eficaz es utilizar specialized tools like Brand24.

Brand24 is a media monitoring & software de gestión de la reputación that allows to track and analyze brand mentions published on:

• Online review sites like Booking.com, TripAdvisor, etc.
• Plataformas de medios sociales, including Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, Telegram, Twitch, and Bluesky
• Foros like Reddit
• Other sources like news sites, blogs, podcasts, video platforms, newsletters, and websites.

Moreover, the tool performs an AI-powered sentiment analysis that unveils the real emotions hidden behind each hotel comment or review.

Let’s explore it a bit.

Step 02: Track and analyze sentiment

As mentioned above, sentiment analysis is a process of uncovering people’s attitudes towards your hotel.

It helps you understand whether the overall tone of guest feedback is positive, negative, or neutral.

Why is it important from a hotel reputation management perspective?

Because sentiment analysis gives a bird-eye view of your reputation.

Simply, when your hotel brand receives hundreds or even thousands of mentions a month, manually reading through them is time-consuming and inefficient.

That’s where AI-powered sentiment analysis quickly:

• Processes large volumes of data,
• Identifies emotion-driven trends, and
• Recognizes potential PR crises or areas you should take care of.

For example, in just 30 days, Hilton was mentioned nearly 60,000 times. Analyzing each of these mentions would be a never-ending story.

Instead, you can look at the sentiment chart and gain instant insight into the hotel’s online reputation trend.

Here, you can take a step further and deepen your analysis. For example, you can discover which channels bring you the most positive and negative reviews.

As you can see below, Hilton enjoys a particularly strong reputación de marca on Instagram and news sites. The main source of negativity is X (Twitter), with 17% of negative mentions.

If I were Hilton’s communications pro, I would focus on improving Resultados de relaciones públicas on this channel.

03 Find customer pain points

Do you know how to eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

The same story applies to hotel reputation management.

Sentiment analysis is great for getting a general, big-picture overview.

But big things always consist of small parts – and those small parts are often what truly make or break a guest’s experience.

That’s why, after spotting a spike in negative sentiment, your next step should be understanding what exactly is causing it. ¿Cómo?

Let’s get back to our Hilton example.

You might have noticed a visible spike in negative mentions on March 4th.

Incité al Asistente de marca AI – a Brand24 chatbot with access to all your internal project data – about it.

It turned out that the main issue was people’s negative reviews of Hilton’s reward program and point devaluation.

Speaking about negative feedback on hotel loyalty programs, I was curious about the main pain points of another famous hotel brand’s customers, Marriott.

I entered the Análisis temático de la IA (which groups the brand mentions under one common topic) and discovered that loyalty program discussions are the third most discussed subject when people mention Marriott.

It seems that reward programs cause trouble for big hotel brands’ reputations.

04 Respond to mentions and reviews promptly

Review management is one of the simplest yet powerful ways to take care of hotel reputation. And it has a tangible business impact!

The data proves that:

• As much as 77% of travelers son more likely to book a hotel after seeing management responding to online reviews;
• 80% of travelers believe that negative reviews are true if hotels do not respond to them.

Further reading: ¿Cómo responder a las críticas negativas? 8 reglas de oro

In other words, if you respond to reviews you increase the chance of booking your hotel. And when you respond to negative reviews, you convince potential guests that you care about existing concerns.

Here, the biggest challenge is time because, according to Mara study, only 1 on 3 reviews are responded faster than in 2 minutes.

But there’s a way to do it quickly and accurately. It’s AI.

Yes, AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, or the AI Brand Assistant can handle this task really well.

05 Encourage guests to leave feedback and reviews

Silence is golden?

Right, but not when it comes to hotel reputation.

Even if your guests are really happy with their stay, many won’t leave a review unless they’re asked. And that’s a missed opportunity. Why?

Porque more reviews = more credibility and trust.

Here’s the good news: people are actually willing to leave a review if the process is easy and the experience is great. You just need to encourage them gently.

So how do you do that?

Here, timing and simplicity are key:

• Include a QR code in the room or at the reception desk
• Ask during check-out with a polite reminder
• Send a short, personalized email inviting them to fill out guest satisfaction surveys and/or leave a review on platforms like TripAdvisor, Booking.com, or Google.

⭐ Pro tip

You can also use sentiment analysis to spot your happiest guests — the ones most likely to leave great reviews.

If someone left a kind social media mention or praised your hotel in a direct message, follow up and kindly ask them to share the same feedback on a public platform.

06 Focus on customer experience

Okay, let’s change the perspective a bit.

Even the smartest seguimiento de los medios de comunicación, the most precise sentiment analysis, or lightning-fast replies will not be enough if the guest experience simply… sucks.

That’s the harsh truth.

If you want to be praised online, you need to deliver quality offline.

And by quality, I don’t mean just marble floors or a fancy rooftop bar.

It’s the small things that matters — a friendly check-in, clean towels, working Wi-Fi, room service that doesn’t take forever, a breakfast that actually matches the photos on your website.

There are endless ways to enhance guest satisfaction.

For example, Hilton created its Hilton Honors app. Guests can check in digitally, choose their room in advance, request upgrades, or report issues.

But you don’t need to develop your own app to improve the guest journey.

Sometimes, it’s enough to optimize the booking process, reduce waiting times, personalize welcome messages, or offer local recommendations.

Such small, thoughtful actions can turn a regular stay into a memorable one.

And the best way to improve guest satisfaction is by listening to what they say in reviews and mentions.

07 Establish an early warning system

A storytime.

In 2014, The Union Street Guest House in Hudson, New York, faced a huge brand crisis. The hotel implemented a policy to fine wedding guests $500 for every negative online review.

This policy led to widespread criticism and a flood of negative reviews. Even from individuals who had never stayed there. It simply gone viral.

Despite removing this rule and issuing a public apology, the damage was irreversible. The hotel closed, leaving behind a damaged reputation and a low Google rating of 1.5 stars.

What went wrong here?

With no doubt, the policy of fining wedding guests for negative feedback was just awful. But there’s another problem underhe surface: it seems they didn’t see the crisis coming.

Further reading: Cómo superar una crisis de marca: guía paso a paso

Sometimes, one frustrated guest, one overlooked incident, or one unexpected trend can trigger a wave of negative feedback. And in the digital world, the waves grow fast.

That’s why modern hotel reputation management isn’t just reactive — it’s predictive.

A well-designed early warning system helps you spot potential PR storms before they hit.

You just need a solid monitoring tool and the right alerts set.

For example, Brand24 offers a set of features that works great as an early warning system:

• Detector de eventos
  
  Whenever Brand24 recognizes an unusual behavior within your project – such as unusual spike in mentions or an unexpected rise of negative reviews – the Event Detector presents a short summary in the dashboard.

• Alertas de tormenta
  Storm Alerts email you immediately when there’s a significant change in your brand’s mention volume or social media reach.
  
  Ejemplo: If your hotel typically receives 10 online mentions daily and suddenly accumulates 30, a Storm Alert will inform you of this 200% increase.

Conclusión

In today’s digital world, hotel reputation management is more crucial than ever. To do it efficiently, you need to follow a few important steps.

​Monitor different channels. Your guests talk about you anywhere: on review sites, social media, blogs, forums, etc. Don’t miss any feedback opportunities.

Utilize media monitoring tools like Brand24. They streamline this process by tracking & analyzing online mentions, as well as deep-down análisis de opiniones.

Always encourage your guests to share their experiences through reviews. It builds trust and influences potential customers.

Go offline and simply deliver an exceptional service. It’s the best way to receive positive feedback and attract guests.

Also, do not forget to implement an early warning system. It shields your hotel’s online reputation by detecting and managing potential issues before they escalate.

Reflexiones finales:

• Hotel reputation management significa control what people say about your hotel brand and improving your guests experiences thanks to these insights.
• Online reputation management matters because it really impacts how people perceive your hotel y – most importantly – whether they choose to book a stay.
• Top 3 ways to improve hotel reputation? Provide exceptional customer experience, listen to brand mentionsy respond to every review – especially the negative ones.
• A five-star reputation starts with a five-star experience.

Start Brand24’s free trial now and monitor your hotel reputation!