In today's competitive hospitality industry, many hotels and restaurants are frustrated with the TripAdvisor AI Review Summary feature.
However, with the right strategies, this tool can become a powerful asset, driving guest satisfaction and boosting bookings.
While larger hotel groups have already adapted to these changes with great success, all hotels—regardless of size—can benefit from optimising their TripAdvisor AI Review Summary panel.
Here are eight tactics that are easy to implement, require minimal investment, and can turn potential frustration into a valuable opportunity.
What is the TripAdvisor AI Review Summary Feature?
TripAdvisor’s AI Review Summary feature provides travel-intent customers with quick insights into a hotel’s key attributes, such as location, value, and service quality.
These AI-generated summaries are prominently displayed above individual reviews, allowing travellers to make informed decisions without scrolling through endless reviews.
Key Features:
- Quick Insights: Travellers can easily grasp the most important aspects of a hotel or restaurant.
- Streamlined Decisions: The summary highlights what matters most, helping travellers make faster decisions.
- Crafted from Real Reviews: These summaries reflect the overall sentiment of guest feedback, focusing on what travellers value most.
While these summaries are generally accurate, they can sometimes lack the context provided by detailed reviews, leading to potential challenges.
How Does The TripAdvisor AI Review Summary Feature Work?
TripAdvisor’s AI uses an advanced technique called Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) to create these summaries. Here's a simplified breakdown:
- Finding Relevant Information: The AI scans through a vast collection of reviews to identify the most relevant details about the hotel or restaurant.
- Scoring Relevance: The AI scores these details to determine which ones best match what travellers care about.
- Combining Context: The AI integrates this information to ensure the summary is accurate and up-to-date.
- Generating the Summary: The AI then creates a concise summary that highlights the key points, giving travellers a quick, clear overview.
The Impact of AI Review Summaries on Hotels and Restaurants
TripAdvisor’s AI Review Summaries are designed to make review information more efficient for travellers. However, they also present significant challenges for hotels and restaurants, such as:
- Oversimplification: AI summaries may oversimplify nuanced reviews, potentially leading to misinformed decisions.
- Visibility Issues: There's concern that these summaries might reduce the perceived value of individual guest reviews, as travel-intent customers could rely solely on the AI-generated summaries.
Given that AI summaries often shape the first impression of your property, it's crucial to monitor and manage how your hotel or restaurant is represented.
8 Actionable Steps to Leverage the TripAdvisor AI Review Summary feature.
To ensure TripAdvisor’s AI Review Summaries work in your favour, consider implementing the following eight tactics:
1. Monitor AI Summaries Regularly
Actionable Steps:
- Regularly check AI-generated summaries to ensure they accurately reflect your property’s strengths.
- If inaccuracies are detected, provide feedback to TripAdvisor and participate in available feedback opportunities.
- Identify recurring negative themes and address them promptly.
Pro Tip: Use BFN-AI, an advanced AI-powered review response assistant, to generate negative sentiment reports. This tool can scan your recent negative reviews (1-3 stars) to pinpoint common guest issues and suggest targeted actions to enhance future ratings.
2. Encourage More Positive Reviews
Research indicates that around 40% of guests are less inclined to leave reviews after a positive experience unless prompted.
Actionable Steps:
- Remind satisfied guests at check-out that they’ll receive a review request email, and encourage them to leave reviews.
- Create TripAdvisior Review QR codes and place around strategic areas of your property.
- Automate your review requests by sending a simple, triggered email 24 hours after checkout.
- Don't: Send guest surveys with review requests, as surveys can deter responses.
Pro Tip: Simplify the review process by offering a one-click link that takes guests directly to your hotel's TripAdvisor review form.
3. Respond to Reviews Within 24 Hours
Since TripAdvisor's AI review summary scans the most recent reviews, ensure swift and detailed responses to these reviews.
Actionable Steps:
- Respond quickly to reviews, enhancing your hotel's reputation and minimising the impact of negative feedback.
- Ensure responses are detailed, personalised, and include relevant keywords naturally to boost SEO.
Pro Tip: Use AI-powered automated review response tools like BFN-AI to respond to reviews instantly, maintaining your brand’s distinctive tone and style.
This ensures each reply feels authentic and human.
4. Enhance Key Areas Highlighted by AI
Actionable Steps:
- Focus on improving aspects frequently mentioned in AI summaries, such as rooms, cleanliness, and service.
- Use these summaries to understand what guests value most and invest in those areas.
Pro Tip: AI-powered tools like BFN-AI can simplify the review analysis process by analysing thousands of reviews from multiple platforms and identifying prevalent themes. This provides hotels with actionable insights.
5. Leverage AI Feedback in Marketing
Actionable Steps:
- Highlight positive themes from AI summaries in social media posts and digital ads.
- Use the summaries to showcase what sets your hotel apart from competitors.
Pro Tip: Display your best reviews on your website. The BFN-AI review widget automatically shows live reviews and responses from Google and TripAdvisor, enhancing your online presence.
6. Train Staff on AI Insights
Actionable Steps:
- Educate your team about AI summaries and how they reflect guest perceptions.
- Use these insights to train staff on enhancing guest experiences in areas highlighted by AI.
7. Encourage Reviews on Google
If your AI Review Summary Panel is not an accurate reflection of your property, Google reviews can help balance the perception in your favour.
Many travellers rely on both platforms, and a strong presence on Google can counter any inaccuracies in the AI summary.
Actionable Steps:
- Include a link to your Google Business Profile when requesting reviews.
- Create Google Review QR codes and place around strategic areas of your property.
- Guests often find it easier to leave reviews on Google, which can be highly influential.
- TripAdvisor has about 60 million active members and Google's gmail has 1.8 billion active users, you can see that it is going to be much easier for the guests to leave a Google review simply because there are 30 times more Google accounts in the world than TripAdvisor ones.
8. Create a Guest Reviews Page
Displaying guest reviews directly on your hotel's website can build trust with potential guests and keep them engaged on your site, reducing the need to visit third-party review platforms.
Actionable Steps:
- Set up a dedicated guest review page on your website.
- Allow guests to post reviews directly on your site and showcase them alongside reviews from TripAdvisor and Google.
Pro Tip: Display your best reviews on your website. The BFN-AI review widget automatically shows live reviews and responses from Google and TripAdvisor, enhancing your online presence.
Case Study: AI Review Response Management.
Discover how db Seabank Hotel used BFN-AI to slash review reply times to just minutes, while delivering responses so natural and personalized, they’re indistinguishable from human-authored reviews. Boost guest satisfaction, protect your online reputation, and drive future bookings with AI-powered review management.
Conclusion
As the hospitality industry navigates through an era of rapid technological advancement, artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a pivotal tool, revolutionising how hotels enhance customer experience and streamline operations.
From personalised guest services to data-driven marketing strategies, AI's integration is reshaping the travel and hospitality landscape, offering innovative solutions that cater to the evolving demands of modern travelers.
By understanding and leveraging TripAdvisor's AI Review Summary Panel, hotels and restaurants can turn these challenges into opportunities, enhancing their online reputation and driving more bookings.
Implement these tactics today to stay ahead of the competition and ensure your property is well-represented in the digital landscape.