Users Give Small Luxury Hotel Brands Better Reviews Than Big Competitors

As a group, smaller luxury hotel brands get slightly better online guest reviews than the big luxury brands, according to a new study.

Reputation management firm ReviewPro found that the top 25 small luxury brands it considered achieved marks that were on average 2.9% higher in its Global Review Index than did the top 25 large brands.

ReviewPro analyzed more than 830,000 reviews published in 2013 from the 84 hotel brands (including 1,692 properties) that STR Global classified as "luxury" chains. ReviewPro categorized large brands as those with 20 or more properties, and small brands as having fewer than 20.

Here are the top 5 brands in each category, according to their GRI scores:

Top 5 Large Luxury Hotel Brands

Source: ReviewPro

Top 5 Small Luxury Hotel Brands

Source: ReviewPro

In other findings from the ReviewPro's Top Luxury Hotel & Brand report:

• Only 5.3% of the user reviews were negative while 82% were positive, and 12.7% were neutral.
• There were 35% more reviews of luxury hotel brands in 2013 compared with 2012.
• When considering the top 100 luxury properties that were rated, India (13%) had the largest number of properties, followed by the U.S. (11%) and China (11%).

The report also shows the online travel agency and review sites with the most reviews of the 84 luxury brands under consideration:

Most Reviews of Luxury Hotel Brands
1. TripAdvisor
2. Booking.com
3. Ctrip
4. Bestchinahotel
5. Expedia
6. Hotels.com
7. Agoda
8. HolidayCheck
9. Google
10. Yelp
11. Priceline
12. eLong
13. Jalan
14. Orbitz
15. Qunar
16. Wotif
17. Ikyu
18. Gogobot
19. Hrs.de
20. TravelRepublic
Source: ReviewPro