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Decoding our algorithm: A guide to boosting your hotel’s visibility

Explore the signals we evaluate to inform visibility and learn why prioritizing your guests’ experience can improve your property’s performance.

April 4, 2024

Hotels Traveler experience

Our shared goal is simple: deliver great guest experiences. When travelers book through one of our websites or apps, we want their experience to be frictionless and positive — from booking to check out to returning home.  

 

At each of these touchpoints, each interaction informs a traveler’s trust in you, your property, and in Expedia Group, which is why the experience you provide guests helps determine your visibility. And the higher you appear in search results, the more visible you are to travelers. In fact, properties that appear in the top 10 sort positions on Expedia® and Hotels.com® get 62% of clicks.*

 

So, what goes into securing a higher sort order? What can you do to improve your property’s position? Read on to learn what top signals we evaluate to inform visibility in our marketplace, so you can boost your property’s performance.

How our algorithm works

Using advanced machine learning, our proprietary search algorithm determines search relevancy, or how well your property matches a traveler’s search criteria. 

 

Our search algorithm for property ranking also ensures that the strongest offers — the ones most likely to convert to bookings — show at the top of the traveler search results. This is where the experience you provide guests comes into play. We look at a variety of signals to evaluate and measure your offer strength and guest experience — from amenities and rate competitiveness to traveler reviews and customer support — we’re constantly exploring the factors that indicate a greater likelihood of a happy guest and repeat stays.

 

The combination of your search relevancy, offer strength, and guest experience scores, as well as the additional tools you leverage, such as Accelerator and TravelAds, influence your property’s placement in the search results.  

 

In addition, we consider how much we’re paid when a traveler stays at your property, which includes commissions from accommodation and compensation on bookings. What we’re paid recognizes the part we play in listing your property on our site and facilitating the booking. 

Your guest experience impacts your position in search results.

Put your best foot forward with potential guests

Delivering a positive guest experience starts long before travelers arrive at your property. From photos to room rates, travelers are evaluating your property before booking to see if it’s a match for their needs.

 

To put your best foot forward with guests, pay attention to your offer strength score on the visibility performance page in Partner Central. Your offer strength score assesses the attractiveness and competitiveness of your listing and alerts you to missing information, rate discrepancies, and more, along with actionable recommendations to quickly address gaps and optimize your listing.

Offer strength factors, in order of impact on your score:

Room availability and inventory

Make sure travelers see all the options available when they are booking a stay.

Rate competitiveness

Ensure you are providing travelers with the best rates and deals.

Content completeness

Set guest expectations with listing details like amenities, points of interest, guest policies, fee information, and more.

Photo quality & quantity

Use a variety of high-quality photos to best represent your property, its rooms, amenities, and the surrounding area.

Applying the recommendations from our tool will help ensure that you make your best first impression to travelers, increase their confidence to book your property, and improve your sort order.  

 

Boost your offer strength score

Provide great guest experiences

In addition to your offer strength, your attention to care and detail throughout the guest experience also plays a significant role in where your property appears in search results. To help you better serve your guests, our guest experience score analyzes data from your recent guest ratings and reviews data to measure what guests love about your property and what opportunities there are for improvement.

Guest experience factors, in order of impact on your score:

Preventable relocations

Assess how often your guests were moved from their original room for preventable reasons.

Property condition and facilities

Show how your guests have rated the condition of your property, including maintenance level and safety.

Preventable cancellations

Understand the number of times guests cancel before or during check-in due to no or poor-quality service.

Cleanliness

Determine whether the cleanliness of your property meets travelers’ expectations.

Check-in ratings

Measure how your guests enjoy the check-in experience at your property.

Preventable refunds

Assess how often guests requested refunds for preventable reasons.

Amenities

Determine whether your property’s amenities meet traveler expectations.

Staff and service reviews

Understand how your guests perceive the level of service at your property.

The guest experience score provides you with a clear view of how your guests perceive different experiences at your property. This will equip you with the right information to help you go above and beyond for guests. And the better guest experience you provide, the more likely you’ll be visible to travelers in our marketplace.  

 

By monitoring their guest experience score and following their personalized recommendations in Partner Central, The Marker Key West Harbor Resort improved its post-stay reviews and in-house feedback response times, as well as introduced welcome letters and pre-arranged perks to go above and beyond for guests who were members of our rewards program. As a result, they improved their guest experience score by over 20 points and grew their revenue by 11% year-over-year (YoY) during the first half of 2023.**

 

See your guest experience score

 

 

From booking to the stay itself, delivering a memorable guest experience is vital in determining your property’s visibility and performance in our marketplace. Log in to Partner Central to understand your visibility performance and access tailored recommendations to help your property stand out.   

Log in to Partner Central

Access your offer strength and guest experience scores and take actions on your personalized recommendations to ensure your property is seen by more travelers.
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