Get Great Guest Reviews

Hello, hospitality stars! I'm Adele Gutman, a 40-year veteran of the hospitality industry and the creator of The Five-star Review System. Welcome to Get Great Guest Reviews! I created this show not only for hotel owners and hospitality leaders but for all explorers of Hospitality excellence. Those who are always ready to reach for the stars when it comes to inspiring five-star reviews, and inspiring happiness from guests, customers, members, residents, patients, and of course our own team members. Online reviews have changed the way people make buying decisions, and this is especially true when it comes to travel and experiences. To be financially successful, we need to fully utilize and empower the collective intelligence of every team member. We need to find ways our team can stay inspired and grow every day. And, we need to break down the silos between sales, marketing, revenue, and guest experience and operations. Only by working as one team, focused on an inspirational vision of the positive impact we can make in the lives of our guests, our team members, and in our communities. We can build the brand reputation and loyalty that creates fans and draws in new customers like a magnet. Each week, we will examine new mindsets, tools, tactics, and strategies to create a work culture we dream of, building loyalty and elevating the perceived value of our experiences. You don’t have to be a five-star hotel to deliver five-star experiences and inspire five-star reviews. Don’t let mixed reviews be an obstacle to profitability. There is no revenue optimization without reputation optimization. So, let’s reach for the stars! Please join me on a journey, of caring, collaboration, and continuous improvement, as we all learn how to master how to Get Great Guest Reviews. For more free resources, including complete show notes, please visit www.AdeleGutman.com/getgreatreviews

Are Sub-Optimal Reviews Sabotaging Your Hotel Marketing ROI? 11/28/2023

Bringing Hospitality to Healthcare to Elevate the Patient Experience with Peter Yesawich 10/26/2023

Every Week is Housekeeping Week with Lonny Wolfe and the Art of Housekeeping 09/14/2023

Mother-Daughter Hotel Owner Duo Inspire 90% 5-Star Reviews at the Saratoga Arms Hotel 08/23/2023

Mother-Daughter Hotel Owner Duo Inspire 90% 5-Star Reviews at the Saratoga Arms Hotel When your guests shower your hotel, motel, B&B, restaurant, or vacation rental in 5-star reviews, your guests will do so much of the marketing for you, making your business more visible online, and more enticing by elevating the perceived value of the unique experience you offer. Today, let’s learn from Kathleen and Amy Smith, who are phenomenal hoteliers and hospitality reputation cultivation experts! Kathleen and Amy own and operate the #1 hotel on Tripadvisor in Saratoga Springs, the Saratoga Arms Hotel, which is celebrating its 25th year in business. Congratulations ladies! There’s a Gaelic saying to describe the heart of hospitality in Ireland, “cead mílle fáilte,” a hundred thousand welcomes. That authentic Irish spirit of hospitality is in the family DNA of these two women hotel owners, and it is easy to witness their leadership and heartfelt commitment to hospitality reflected in the work of their team. Just take a look at the astonishing 90% of Tripadvisor reviews scores showing enthusiastic 5-star reviews (aka-promoters) and only a pittance of 2.74% of reviews coming in at 3 stars or below (aka-detractors). This is world-class operational excellence and fantastic business savvy! You’ll definitely want to listen to Kathleen and Amy share their tips on how they do it directly on this episode of Get Great Guest Reviews! Please visit for a few of my top takeaways from the conversation that you can start using today! For more resources, including the blog with complete show notes and more, visit: Thank you for listening! If you appreciate this content, please share, comment, and subscribe! Your reviews also help others find us, so thank you in advance for your support. If you would like a Reputation Renovation or a Reputation Cultivation Program for your hotel or business, please contact Adele Gutman at /episode/index/show/getgreatreviews/id/27834651

How to Rank #1 in the USA on Tripadvisor with the General Manager of the Perry Lane Hotel Savannah 07/05/2023

Alain Negueloua Shares His Secrets for Consistent 5-Star Reviews at Bardessono Hotel & Spa of Remington Hospitality 06/21/2023

Alain Negueloua Shares His Secrets for Consistent 5-Star Reviews at Bardessono Hotel & Spa of Remington Hospitality If you want to learn the inside scoop from a General Manager of a highly rated hotel as to what it actually takes to help a hotel’s team inspire consistent Five Star Reviews from guests, this is the podcast for you! The Bardessono Hotel and Spa in Yountville, California, managed by Remington Hospitality, boasts a stellar 5 out of 5 Stars on Tripadvisor and Google, 9.1 out of 10 on Booking.com and 9.6 out of 10 on Expedia, not to mention some stunning ratings from travel guides and international publications. I had the pleasure of chatting with Alain Negueloua, the Vice President and General Manager of the Bardessono, to find out what kind of magic he and his team are doing to inspire such consistently enthusiastic reviews. If you care about revenue optimization, culture, and attracting and retaining great guests and great employees, increasing profit and customer lifetime value, please listen and share this episode of Get Great Guest Reviews with your associates. As a hotelier who led my previous hotel collection to the highest guest review scores in the world, a 96.1% GRI, Global Review Index from Review Pro, I am passionate about learning about the daily habits of high-rated hotels and what habits they have in common. SPOILER ALERT! While each General Manager and Hospitality Leader has a different way of describing what they do, there are core habits that highly rated hoteliers all share! Even better, you can apply these habits and philosophies to your daily work life, and you, too, will enjoy similar rewards. These proven principles will work in any category of hotel, restaurant, or attraction and in any service industry business where it is beneficial and vital to have returning customers and enthusiastic referrals, recommendations, and online reviews. Here’s a quick overview of our discussion topics. For the Full Show Notes visit adelegutman.com/getgreatguestreviews The elevating impact of an entrepreneurial spirit How experiencing excellence inspires more excellence in a community How to Stand Out from the Competition How to Build Trust Stories of the Power of Taking Action on Feedback The importance of collaborating with your team to solve problems Making Innovative Problem Solving a Daily Habit The Importance of Sharing the WHY. Hiring the right people and implementing standards. Clearly communicating standards and expectations The importance of listening to feedback. Relentless, constant, gentle pressure delivers a great guest experience. The importance of paying attention to the little things. The value of cross-training teams. How a stellar online reputation can help you stand apart. How stellar online reviews can give a competitive advantage. How stellar reviews help attract and retain employees. Books we discussed: by Danny Meyer by Jim Collins by Jim Collins Become a Hospitality Star Maker! If you want to learn more about making every guest and valued team member feel cared for, appreciated, and respected? Keep tuned into this conversation and subscribe to Get Great Guest Reviews! I hope you enjoy and benefit from this episode! Thank you so much to my guest Alain Negueloua Vice President and General Manager of The Bardessono Hotel and Spa in Yountville, California, managed by Remington Hospitality: If you would like some help implementing these ideas, it would be my pleasure to make the process easy for you. Please set up a time for us to chat on Calendly: https://calendly.com/adele-gutman/15min Website: https://www.adelegutman.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adelegutman/ Adele’s Speaker Sheet: Twitter: @AdeleGutman YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/GetGreatGuestReviewswithAdeleGutman Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/get-great-guest-reviews/id1607713697 Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5saWJzeW4uY29tLzM3NzIxMy9yc3M?sa=X&ved=0CAMQ4aUDahcKEwiYyoi9gqH4AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ&hl=en Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7AAgxomCdTCWue20ru3QWs Thank you for listening! Have a great week, and keep reaching for the stars! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Adele /episode/index/show/getgreatreviews/id/27227373

Dr. Peter Ricci, Champion for the Revolution of Progress and Flexibility in Hospitality Leadership 06/08/2023

Dr. Peter Ricci, Champion for the Revolution of Progress and Flexibility in Hospitality Leadership Dr. Peter Ricci has been honored as a Hospitality Hero and a Top 25 Minds by HSMAI and a Global Top 100 Most Power Leaders and Thirty Most Influential Educators in Hospitality by International Hospitality Institute. Undoubtedly, Peter is one of the most influential leaders in our industry. He deserves all these honors and more for applying his unrelenting yet loving, gentle pressure on the industry to move the culture forward in a more positive and richly rewarding direction. As Clinical Professor and Director of Hospitality and Tourism for Florida Atlantic University, Dr. Peter Ricci has his finger on the pulse of the dreams, frustrations, challenges, and opportunities of today’s goal-oriented and aspiring hospitality professionals. In today’s episode, Dr. Ricci shares his insights on why reputation and guest feedback management are more important than ever and how hospitality leaders can best empower and inspire our associates to deliver excellence in hospitality to every guest. As a former vice president of sales, marketing, and revenue for a boutique hotel collection for 20 years, getting great guest reviews, referrals, and recommendations was one of my key responsibilities. I believe that an energized team of cross-trained associates who take pride in creative problem-solving and continuous improvement is as fundamental to revenue optimization as a great website, booking engine, and pricing strategy. Therefore, I am excited to share my conversation with you, both operations and commercial leaders, with the extraordinary Dr. Peter Ricci. Please take a few minutes to listen and learn more from Peter’s insights during our conversation on Get Great Guest Reviews, the Podcast! For full access to the show notes and more, please visit: https://www.adelegutman.com/getgreatreviews Please subscribe and listen to the podcast so you won’t miss a single concept that you might like to try to progress and elevate your employee and guest experience. Why being in a state of flux is an exciting opportunity for growth How to infuse technology without “tipping over the Apple cart” One hotel’s big tip for offering flexibility in scheduling What the Country Club industry envisions for the future of work-life quality We also chatted about great books to read now: , by Anthony Melchiori by Will Guidara Adele’s Favorite Peter Ricci Quote from the show: “…the better the service, the more the finance on the top and the bottom. And so in the reduction in turnover, it’s less costly, so it just makes financial sense as well. But that’s always the missing piece. ‘Oh, you want to add headcount, we can’t afford it.’ Well, how about what we’re spending on turnover? Spending on retraining. Let’s try it at least. All I say is try it, then you can see where it goes." If you want to learn more about making every guest and valued team member feel cared for, appreciated, and respected, keep tuned into this conversation and subscribe to Get Great Guest Reviews! General Managers, would like a free strategy session for your hotel? Feel free to connect with me and send a request. I love to help hospitality professionals elevate their productivity and profitability. Contact: getgreatguestreviews@adelegutman.com Until next time, keep reaching for the stars! Adele Gutman /episode/index/show/getgreatreviews/id/27085260

Raul Moronta, CCO of Remington Hotels talks about Brand Performance: Mission, Action with Intent, and Guest Satisfaction 05/24/2023

Raul Moronta, CCO of Remington Hotels talks about Brand Performance: Mission, Action with Intent, and Guest Satisfaction I am so excited to share with you my recent discussion with , Chief Commercial Officer of as we talk about Brand Performance: Mission, Action with Intent, and Guest Satisfaction. Ask most travelers, and you are likely to hear about the lowering of hospitality and service excellence since the devastating impact of COVID. In fact, most consumers would say that customer service in all industries has taken a severe tumble. But counter to the trend, in the past year or so, Remington Hotels has been dramatically elevating its brand performance and loyalty across its diverse portfolio of 120 hotels by investing in its people and the guest experience they deliver. You’ll definitely want to hear what Raul Moronta has to say about this initiative and its impact. As someone who has led multiple hotels to successfully achieve Guest Review Scores that dominated their city, country, and, yes…the world, I was fascinated to learn more about what Remington Hotels is doing to drive revenue and loyalty at both branded and independent properties. Please take a few minutes to learn more from Raul’s insights during our conversation on ! For full access to the show notes and more, please visit: https://www.adelegutman.com/getgreatreviews What Actions Will You Take to Elevate Loyalty? A great guest experience worthy of a five-star review is no accident. It takes “action with intent” to continually support teams, diminish friction and make guests happy. Please take the time to comment, subscribe and share this podcast with business leaders who are passionate about elevating loyalty by creating a culture of hospitality and continuous improvement. And don’t forget to check out our previous articles for tips you can start to apply immediately to your own business. Want a free strategy session for your hotel? Feel free to connect with me and send a request. I love to help hospitality professionals elevate their productivity and profitability. getgreatguestreviews@adelegutman.com Until next time, keep reaching for the stars! /episode/index/show/getgreatreviews/id/26941164

9 Reasons Hoteliers Need to Make Reputation and Guest Feedback Your Super Power for Revenue Results 05/10/2023

9 Reasons Hoteliers Need to Make Reputation and Guest Feedback Your Super Power for Revenue Results Welcome Back to Get Great Guest Reviews, Season 2! Recently, on LinkedIn, there was a poll asking what hotel general managers and hospitality professionals care most about and want to see content on. As I recall, Trends in the Industry, Technology, and Revenue Management were all popular. However, Reputation and Social Media were combined and still came out at the bottom of the list, with only 2% of hospitality professionals showing any interest. Say it isn’t so! I took this surprising information as an opportunity to start our new season of podcasts with why everyone needs to care about guest reviews. It is a fundamental concept of business success that highly satisfied customers are more likely to return, purchase more frequently, and spread good word-of-mouth advertising to help a business attract and keep more loyal guests. In the world of hotels and global online distribution, this basic principle is exponentially elevated and more important than ever before. In this episode, Adele Gutman breaks down 9 Top Reasons Why Hoteliers Need to Make Reputation and Guest Feedback a Super Power for Revenue Results. Listen in now to hear about the impact on customer loyalty, employee retention, Average Daily Rate, Sales & Marketing conversions, display algorithms, and more! THANK YOU! I want to thank everyone who supported this podcast and patiently waited for the next season while I tended to matters at home. I am deeply grateful to everyone who helped Get Great Guest Reviews to be recognized as one of the top 35 podcasts in the hospitality industry for 2023 by the International Hospitality Institute! Check out a copy of Global Hospitality Magazine and discover all the honorees in the industry that you may want to follow. If you have a question about reputation and how to inspire consistent five-star reviews from your guests, contact us at Subscribe, Follow, and Connect with Adele Gutman: Website: Podcast Page: LinkedIn: Invite Adele to speak at your next conference: If you have a question about reputation and how to inspire consistent five-star reviews from your guests, contact us at /episode/index/show/getgreatreviews/id/26799009

Carlo Carroccia, award-winning hotel manager, shares the process for phenomenal guest experiences 11/02/2022

Carlo Carroccia, award-winning hotel manager, shares the process for phenomenal guest experiences Did you know that there are over 130 000 hotels in the USA? I consider myself fortunate that three of the four hotels I worked with at Library Hotel Collection were rated among the top 25 hotels in the USA on the Best of the Best, Tripadvisor's Travelers Choice Awards, and the fourth one was followed very closely behind. The people whose hotels rank among the top guest-reviewed hotels in the country are all part of a very fortunate group of hoteliers who have discovered and implemented the secrets to what it takes to make guests happy. The guests are so happy they can’t help themselves from writing 5-star reviews for the kind people who treated them like VIPs. The secret these General Managers have is a process, a daily discipline, and a philosophical commitment to continuously improve the guest experience. This episode is an edited revisit to a conversation with one of the top General Managers in the United States, the serial award-winning Carlo Carroccia of Charlestowne Hotels. Carlo is the Dual General Manager of both the French Quarter Inn and the Spectator hotel in Charleston, and time and time again, those two hotels keep showing up among the top 25 Hotels in the US on Tripadvisor. He’s not trying to be the #1 Hotel in the country on Tripadvisor. Instead, he is focused on creating a culture where every day, every employee is on a mission to make every guest experience a happy one. Please enjoy this episode and learn from a master! The process works. It works for Carlo, it worked for me, and they will work for anyone who wants to learn how to make guest happiness a growth strategy for their hospitality or service business. If you would like to learn how to implement these principles at your hotels or portfolio, please get in touch with Adele at getgreatreviews@adelegutman.com or subscribe at adelegutman.com /episode/index/show/getgreatreviews/id/24872832

10 Dos & Don'ts to Cultivate Consumer Confidence with Skilled Management Responses to Bad Reviews 10/14/2022

10 Dos & Don'ts to Cultivate Consumer Confidence with Skilled Management Responses to Bad Reviews Leadership in Action is Essential for Cultivating Consumer Confidence. Albert Einstein famously said, "Intellectuals solve problems; geniuses prevent them." I love the wisdom in that quote! My hospitality spin on this quote would be: Good hotels deal with problems. Great hotels fix problems. The most loved hotels see a problem as an opportunity for creativity and innovation, so they avoid having to see that problem recur. To illustrate this point, I have selected a few true-to-life review responses I have just seen online. I will show some typical hotel review responses, where the hotel hopes to get the customer back, fingers crossed. They are dealing with the problem. not fixing or preventing it from recurring. The reputation management box has been checked, but has anything been accomplished? I will then show an alternative approach for the response so you can see the difference. You can decide which sound good versus which effectively elevate consumer confidence by showcasing responsible and compassionate leadership in action. That response has a good chance of winning a return visit and attracting new customers. The excellent review response came from a young manager, Frangelica Siy, at the Embassy Suites in Downtown San Diego. They are a 3-Star hotel that consistently inspires 5-Star reviews from its guests, thanks to leadership in action from great hoteliers like Frangelica. No wonder the Embassy Suites in San Diago is currently one of the top 10 hotels in the city, out of hundreds of other hotels, many far more opulent than the Embassy Suites. Way to go- Frangelica and team! I hope you will find these examples illuminating and begin to consider these Dos and Don'ts whenever you or your team respond to reviews with the goals of elevating consumer confidence, living your values, and demonstrating leadership in action. For more information and inspiration on Reputation Cultivation, Leadership and Culture, please visit adelegutman.com/getgreatreviews. /episode/index/show/getgreatreviews/id/24688794

3 Skills Hotel Teams Need to Master to Get Great Guest Reviews 09/16/2022

The 1 Thing Every Hospitality Pro Needs to Know to Inspire 5-Star Reviews for Their Hotel or Restaurant. 08/21/2022

Simple Collaboration Create Big Results for Guest Experience Scores 08/07/2022

Simple Collaboration Create Big Results for Guest Experience Scores There was a recent article in the Harvard Business Review - Future-Proofing Businesses with Modern Customer Engagement, written by Karen Peacock, the Chief Executive Officer of Intercom. 44% of respondents, hundreds of Harvard Business Review readers, indicated that a lack of collaboration and the constrictions of information silos at work are the top impediments to successful customer engagement at their company. The second obstacle at 32% of responses was the failure to share customer insight data throughout the company. This insight hits close to home for me. I feel that a lack of collaboration and lack of sharing guest feedback are two of the top impediments to solving customer problems. That's how we limit our customer satisfaction success. If we coupled collaboration with leadership, fostering shared personal and company-wide intentions to embrace positive change, we would easily create more five-star guest experiences. Please listen to the podcast. I want to share what I think is a terrific little story of something that just happened to me at a hotel this week that demonstrates how easy it can be to break through these obstacles and start delivering better experiences at a hotel or any business. I will also share several tips on how you can begin today to initiate simple yet effective communications to transform the guest experience. If you would like some help implementing these ideas, please reach out to me. Follow and connect with Adele Gutman: Website: LinkedIn: Facebook: Instagram: Twitter: YouTube: Apple Podcasts: Google Podcasts: Spotify: Thank you for listening! If you found value in this discussion, it would mean the world to us to have you as a subscriber and share this with anyone you know who might benefit from Get Great Guest Reviews the Podcast! Have a great week, and keep reaching for the stars! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Adele Link to the Article in HBR: /episode/index/show/getgreatreviews/id/23985174

The Relationship of Reputation, Reviews and Revenue for Hotels 07/25/2022

7 Practices to Stop Now if You Want Guests to Love Your Hotels 07/15/2022

7 Practices to Stop Now if You Want Guests to Love Your Hotels "Would You Treat Your Mama Like That?" Are your mission statement and guiding principles filled with words like honesty, integrity, trust, relationships, caring, and transparency? Of course, they are! We are hospitality! Our quest for excellence requires reflection and self-examination to ensure we truly live in those values. For the most part, there's tremendous heart and honor in the hospitality industry, but sometimes the grind of life can lead us astray from our best intentions, especially in times of stress, like these last few years. By reading reviews from across the country and reviewing websites and booking engines, I have observed a few common blind spots that need attention. We all know the importance of making our guests feel cared for, appreciated, and respected. We also appreciate the potential lifetime value of every customer in terms of return visits, recommendations, and referrals. With the ever-rising cost of customer acquisition, it is fiscally prudent for us to practice reputation and loyalty cultivation actively. In this episode, we will examine seven common complaints on negative reviews that reflect what many travelers consider a deviation from fully, forthright, and honest communications. I would call it a failure to deliver satisfaction on brand promises on websites and booking engines. We'll use the litmus test, "Would you treat your mama like that?" to judge the guest-centricity of these common yet unappreciated practices. Please enjoy this episode! Follow and connect with Adele Gutman: Website: LinkedIn: Facebook: Instagram: Twitter: Youtube: Apple Podcast: Google Podcast: Spotify: Thank you for listening! If you found value in this discussion, it would mean the world to us to have you as a subscriber and share this with anyone you know who might benefit from Get Great Guest Reviews the Podcast! Have a great week, and reach for the stars! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ /episode/index/show/getgreatreviews/id/23753900

Technology, Humanity, and the Guest Experience 07/01/2022

5 Common Mistakes to Avoid When Responding to Negative Reviews 06/20/2022

Master the Art of the Management Response. 5 Thing to do Before You Start Writing 06/07/2022

Upgrade Your Mindset to Unleash Your Business Success 06/02/2022

Upgrade Your Mindset to Unleash Your Business Success Welcome to Get Great Guest Reviews! I hope you enjoy the podcast and the accompanying article. Each episode is designed to help everyone move forward on their journey towards progressively heightened levels of guest loyalty and delight as well as employee engagement and growth. Please be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode or an opportunity to inspire five-star reviews. The hospitality industry, like most service industries, is filled with people who love to make a positive difference in people’s lives. But, when you have a dream of how things at work should be, it can be disheartening when the “realities” of work-life seem to conspire to keep you or your business from fulfilling your potential. But not all barriers to success are actual “realities”. Often it is our own unexamined mindset that inhibits us from taking the very actions that move us closer to our goals. In this episode, I am joined by hospitality expert Cheryl C. Jones, owner of Simply the Best Results and the author of the book, Emotional Self Mastery. We discuss some of our suggestions and insights on how to take charge of your destiny and gently step around any self-talk that isn’t empowering your happiness and success. As Cheryl says, mindsets are neither inherently positive or negative. We as humans simply have patterns of thinking and beliefs that we gleaned from life. These could have come from our parents, our schooling, our self-talk about personal experiences, and even from “experts” on webinars and podcasts. So sometimes we need to reflect and ask ourselves, “Why do I think that?” and, “Is that really true?” For example, I have heard and read, dozens of times hoteliers and experts saying that most people who write reviews are motivated to do so because they want to complain. That seems like it makes sense, right? But the reality is that according to Tripadvisor the average review is 4.1 -4.4 depending on the year. The new study released by ReviewPro in collaboration with Cornell University says that in a sample of 7,500 hotels around the world, the average review score was 84.6%. Clearly, what is considered a common belief doesn’t act stand up to statistical data. So let’s take some time to reflect on some common beliefs that may be holding us back from taking positive action and fulfilling our goals. To access lots of free resources including the complete show notes and more visit To find out more about Cheryl Jones, visit: Adele mentioned some statistics you can find at the source on ReviewPro: /episode/index/show/getgreatreviews/id/23307515

Developing Your Reputation for Excellence- with Nick Faitos of Starbright Floral Design 05/19/2022

A Masterclass in Tripadvisor Success: Sally Beck, GM of the Royal Lancaster, the #3 Hotel in the UK 05/12/2022

A Masterclass in Tripadvisor Success: Sally Beck, GM of the Royal Lancaster, the #3 Hotel in the UK Welcome to Get Great Guest Reviews! If you are a hotel manager, owner, or hospitality professional who would love to see a sunshower of 5-Star reviews coming your way every day, year after year, do yourself a favor and subscribe to this podcast! The next 20 minutes are going to be packed with the truth about what it takes to top the charts on Tripadvisor and other review sites. Lots of people give advice but have never actually led a hotel to the top of the charts. I have, many times, and so has my featured guest today, Sally Beck. I was inspired to re-edit and reshare the story of , so more hoteliers can quickly benefit from her philosophy. You'll soon discover why Sally was recently honored with the , a global distinguished service award in the hospitality industry presented by the International Hospitality Institute. What's more, Tripadvisor has just announced their . Under Sally's stewardship, the Royal Lancaster London rose from #272 in London, to the #3 Hotel in the entire United Kingdom in the 2022 Tripadvisor Best of the Best Travelers Choice Awards. Her story is a masterclass in Reputation Cultivation. The process she describes illuminates a philosophy that is very consistent with hoteliers around the world, who like the hotels I personally worked with, have been able to completely break away from the trend of hotels with high employee turnover and 75%-85% guest satisfaction if they are lucky. The hotels that top the charts on Tripadvisor and earn true loyalty from their guests instead embrace a daily discipline of continuous improvement to inspire a flood of solid gold, five-bubble scores on Tripadvisor. For lots of free resources including the complete show notes to this episode and more, visit Hospitality stars, no matter where you are with your reviews now, there is a path to constantly great reviews! Listen and learn, and if you need help, don't hesitate to contact me to help you through it. Tripadvisor Best of the Best: Follow Sally on LinkedIn: Learn about the Hoteliers Charter: /episode/index/show/getgreatreviews/id/23089829

Why Isn't My Reputation Management Program Making Impact, and other Reputation Questions from Hoteliers 05/04/2022

Why Isn't My Reputation Management Program Making Impact, and other Reputation Questions from Hoteliers Nearly everyone in the business today understands that a company’s reputation and customer reviews have a direct impact on revenue results. That’s especially true in the hotel business where we are selling experiences and there’s a lot of competition. Delivering five-star review-worthy stays is a great way to stand out from the crowd and elevate the perceived value of a visit to your hotel, resort, restaurant, or attraction. But here’s the rub. While many hotels around the world have some level of Reputation Management program in place, many are wondering why it isn’t having more of an impact on its revenue or even its review scores. Is all this work for nothing except to “check the box” on a to-do list? This week, I address this question and explain the life-changing difference between Reputation Management which can be time-consuming but show minimal results, vs Reputation Cultivation, a simple yet powerful way to elevate your competitive advantage, your employee engagement, guest satisfaction, and loyalty, along with your ADR, RevPar, and Profitability. Please listen to the podcast to hear my answers to these questions. You may also like to check out the extended blogpost, which is a companion to the podcast and covers some additional aspects of the following questions that I have received recently regarding hospitality reputation management. Why isn’t my Reputation Management program elevating my revenue significantly? What’s the difference between Reputation Management and Reputation Cultivation? Is it ever okay to use an outside company, a PR company, or a mid-management or junior employee, to respond to reviews for us? Is it ever okay to use a template or boilerplate for management responses? Is asking for good reviews an organic way to improve your online reputation? What’s the best way to ask for reviews? When should you direct people to a survey and when should you direct them to a review site link? Read the rest here: /episode/index/show/getgreatreviews/id/23010134

Authentic Hospitality -Julian Star Award-winning General Manager, Craig Poole 04/28/2022

Authentic Hospitality -Julian Star Award-winning General Manager, Craig Poole Last year, in 2021, I cherished a few conversations of my podcast conversations so much, that I have to revisit them. I feel this conversation is a timeless gift, whether you are an experienced hospitality leader, a brand new general manager or if you aspire to be a great general manager someday. If you are looking for a truly extraordinary leader to follow, listen to Craig Poole, President of Reading Hospitality and a recent recipient of Global Hospitality’s Julian Star Award, presented by the International Hospitality Institute. My fellow podcaster friends, Kyle Allison and Greg Fregoso of Hospitality MD made a documentary about how Craig Poole transformed a community in the second poorest city in the country by launching the DoubleTree by Hilton in Reading Pennsylvania. Craig’s hospitality leadership philosophy is called, Follow me and I will be Behind You. The film of the same name was a contest winner at the Reading Film Festival, and I encourage everyone to watch it and be inspired. I dare you not to shed a tear or two! Not only did the hotel change the trajectory of the lives of the people who worked there, but the hotel is also very profitable and one of the top-rated hotels on Tripadvisor in all of Pennsylvania. I hope you will listen and have a new view of the beauty and power of what Craig calls, "authentic hospitality". For lots of free resources, including the complete show notes to this episode and more, please visit Follow Craig Poole: Follow Adele Gutman: Watch the film, Follow me and I will be behind you. Do you have any questions about how to inspire 5-Star reviews? Please send them to and we will answer them directly with you or in a future episode of Get Great Guest Reviews, the podcast! Thank you for listening! Watch the Documentary, Follow Me and I Will Be Behind You: https://www.reelhouse.org/hospitalitymd/followme/ /episode/index/show/getgreatreviews/id/22936451

The Confetti Culture Playbook Author and Hotel General Manager, James Furguson. 04/19/2022

The Confetti Culture Playbook Author and Hotel General Manager, James Furguson. One of the best ways to cultivate enthusiastic 5-Star reviews is to create a culture of enthusiasm for hospitality and collaborative, creative problem-solving at your hotel. I’m excited to speak today with Hotel General Manager, James Ferguson, who is the author of the new book, The Confetti Culture Playbook: How to Boost Your Team’s Contribution and Impact. With the level of stress and frustration at hotels today, I truly believe that there is nothing more important right now for the future success of our industry than shifting to this people-centric mindset. So do yourself a favor and check out The Confetti Culture Playbook for yourself and gift it to your team members. For additional resources including highlights and complete show notes from this interview, please visit Links: Let's Connect! If your hotel could benefit from more five-star reviews (and honestly, couldn't we all?), please contact us at , and let's see how we can put you on a reputation optimization plan to meet your needs and support your goals. Follow and connect with James Ferguson: Website: LinkedIn: Facebook: 4 Other Authors and Books Mentioned: : Horst Schultze: Dan Cockerell: Follow and connect with Adele Gutman: Website: LinkedIn: Facebook: Instagram: Twitter: Youtube: If you found value in this discussion, it would mean the world to us to have you as a subscriber and shared this with anyone you know who might benefit from this conversation! If you have any questions about how to inspire five-star reviews, please send your message or comment to and we will be sure to answer them on an upcoming episode and/or directly with you. Thank you, in advance for subscribing, and sharing your heartfelt reviews. It means the world to us when we hear that you find the content helpful, and what's more, it helps others find our content too. Let's Connect! Follow and connect with James Ferguson: Website: LinkedIn: Facebook: Other Authors and Books Mentioned: : Horst Schultze: Dan Cockerell: Follow and connect with Adele Gutman: Website: LinkedIn: Facebook: Instagram: Twitter: Youtube: Thank you for listening! Have a great week and reach for the stars! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Adele /episode/index/show/getgreatreviews/id/22846037

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