The pandemic forced the hospitality industry to scale back on capital expenditures due to the challenging business environment. Despite the pause in business, hotel management companies have started making major investments in renovations and maintenance of existing properties as well as in staffing. These investments seem to be paying off in the form of robust guest satisfaction scores for the quality of guest rooms and staff service, according to the recently released J.D. Power 2023 North America Third-Party Hotel Management Guest Satisfaction Benchmark.
Within a year, staffing has gone from one of the biggest challenges for hotel management companies to one of the biggest strengths, said J.D. Power.
“Despite continuing labor shortages, this is a testament to the efforts of the industry to ramp up hiring and training during the past several months. Interactions with staff are one of the most important components of a hotel stay and guests are noticing that they are getting better service,” said Andrea Stokes, hospitality practice lead at J.D. Power.
According to the benchmark ranking, Davidson Hospitality and Dimension Hospitality have ranked the highest in a tie for overall guest satisfaction. The companies each scored 725.
This is the second consecutive year that Davidson Hospitality ranked the highest.
With an overall score of 714, HEI Hotels and Resorts stood third.
Here’s the overall list:
Additional findings:
- Anticipation of guest needs: This is the most important key performance indicator when it comes to guest interactions with hotel staff. Hotel staff met 82% of guest interactions in all third-party hotel management companies evaluated.
- Hotel lobbies/common areas still need work: Guests want modern and unique designs in hotel lobbies and common spaces. Only 13% of branded hotels meet these criteria currently.
- EV charging: Besides the demand for good quality Wi-Fi and plenty of USB charging ports, an increasing number of guests are looking for the availability of EV charging stations. This criterion has been influencing hotel selection and satisfaction. Overall, 19% of guests said they needed an EV charging station at their hotel, but only 6% said they had actually used the feature while staying at the hotel.
RATING PROCESS
The benchmark was redesigned this year. As it enters its fourth year, the benchmark assesses guest satisfaction with branded hotels, all of which are operated by the biggest third-party management companies.
The benchmark is based on six factors — communications and connectivity, food and beverage, guest room, hotel facilities, staff service and value for price. It includes third-party hotel operators with over 14,000 branded hotel rooms under management and is based on 3,942 guest responses for branded hotel stays between May 2022 and May 2023.