The Hotels That Rank Highest For Guest Satisfaction

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Your level of satisfaction with a hotel begins from the moment you make a reservation and doesn’t end until you check out (and even sometimes after that). Between that time frame, the hotel is continually assessed by its guests on just about everything – price, cleanliness, quality of items in the facility, interaction with staff, you name it. And some of those things are more important to guests than others.

J.D. Power’s 2019 North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Index (NAGSI) Study^SM was recently released and is the result of responses from just shy 45,000 hotel guests who reported their satisfaction of hotel experiences from June 2018 through May 2019.

Hotels, obviously, can be basic, economy-style places all the way up to large and grand experiences where your every whim can be catered to. According to J.D. Power’s 2019 NAGSI, the three hotel brands with the highest satisfaction for each level of hotels are:

Luxury

• The Ritz-Carlton (881 out of a 1000-point scale)
• Loews Hotels (868)
• Four Seasons (866)

Upper Upscale

• Hard Rock Hotel (866)
• Gaylord Hotels (864)
• Marriott (860)

Upscale

• Best Western Premiere (862)
• Cambria Hotels & Suites (857)
• AC Hotels by Marriott (855)

Upper Midscale

• Drury Hotels (876)
• Hampton by Hilton (849)
• Home2 Suites by Hilton (848)

Midscale

• Wingate by Wyndham (846)
• Candlewood Suites (842)
• La Quinta Inn & Suites (828)

Economy

• Microtel by Wyndham (797)
• Travelodge by Wyndham (777)
• America’s Best Value Inn (776)

The key finds of the 2019 study are particularly interesting – the most important things to guests are apparently not the minibar, sleek lobby or mints on the pillow – instead, “it’s all about the sleep.” From J.D. Power:

• More zzzs, please: Overall satisfaction scores increase 114 points (on a 1,000-point scale) when hotel guests experience a better-than-expected quality of sleep. However, just 29% of hotel guests had such an experience. Of guests who do experience better-than-expected quality of sleep, 78% say they “definitely will” return to that property and 71% say they “definitely will” return to that brand.
• The anatomy of a good night’s sleep: The top contributors to quality of sleep and, therefore, higher satisfaction scores, are comfort of bed; quietness of room; comfort/quality of pillows; room temperature; and comfort/quality of linens. Satisfaction scores for quality of sleep are also higher when hotels offer beyond-the-basics items, such as white noise/sound machines, earplugs, robe/slippers and authentic local decor.
• Quality of sleep directly correlated to price of room: The highest rate of better-than-expected sleep quality is in the luxury hotel segment (42%), followed by the upper upscale (33%), upscale (31%), upper midscale (28%), midscale (28%) and economy (23%) segments.
• Arrival and check-in experiences present opportunity to shine: The key elements of the check-in experience consistent with high hotel guest satisfaction scores are efficiency (ideally takes five minutes or less); accuracy; and offering a warm welcome. When any of those baseline criteria are not met, satisfaction scores tumble as much as 100 points.

“Delivering a superior sleep experience—from the quality of the bed, linens and pillows to the ambient sound and temperature of the room—is a huge opportunity for hotels to differentiate themselves from the pack and earn significant goodwill with guests,” said Jennifer Corwin, Senior Manager of Consumer Insights for Travel & Hospitality Intelligence at J.D. Power. “Of all the discrete variables of the hotel guest experience we measure, a better-than-expected night’s sleep is the one with the potential to drive the highest levels of overall guest satisfaction for those hotels that can deliver.”

Click here for more information (and rankings!) regarding the J.D. Power 2019 North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Index.

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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary