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Behind-the-Scenes Insights and Trends from J.D. Power's Hotel Satisfaction Study
with Andrea Stokes, Practice Lead for Hospitality at J.D. Power
Josiah Mackenzie
August 09, 2023
Good morning. You know those J.D. Power quality awards you always see in TV ads? Well, today we’re learning what they learned in their recent study on hotel guest satisfaction - trends you should know to guide the way you provide hospitality.
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Behind-the-Scenes Insights from J.D. Power's Hotel Satisfaction Study
with Andrea Stokes, Practice Lead for Hospitality at J.D. Power
J.D. Power is renowned for its research on customer satisfaction across industries, and you’ve no doubt seen its awards show up in advertising across a broad range of products.
Today, we’re learning from their practice lead for hospitality, Andrea Stokes. A few highlights from our conversation today…
Why research matters
Why does research and benchmarking matter to you as a hospitality provider? A few things, Andrea says:
It helps you set goals and provides you with numbers to track your progress.
Allows you to compare your performance against competitors
Shows you ways you can improve guest satisfaction
Our study is very operational, so it provides very hands-on ways to improve your housekeeping or guest service. Maybe you need to do better at maintenance within the hotel. It provides metrics that hotels can take away and say, yes, we can work on this tomorrow and try to improve.
J.D. Power's study methodology
J.D. Power's study is an annual 12-month project that starts in June every year and runs through the following May. The study surveys guests who have stayed in a branded hotel in the past 30 days, asking them about their experiences in various areas such as the guest room, hotel facility, food and beverage, staff service, communication and connectivity, and value for money.
The data is fed into an index model, which calculates a performance score on a 1,000-point scale. The study provides index scores for various areas such as rooms, food and beverage, and staff service - as well as an overall satisfaction score.
Recent updates to this methodology
Andrea explained that J.D. Power recently made updates to the study process in response to changes in the industry and consumer behavior.
We added some questions around a couple of areas. One was the lobby and common areas of the hotel. With a lot of remote workers out there, we felt there was more interest in hotel lobbies. The industry was also looking at this, saying how can we make our lobby more attractive to remote workers? How can we get people out of their guest rooms and down into the common spaces of the hotel, whether it's to work or socialize or whatever? We added some questions about perceptions of the lobby. Is it warm and inviting? Is it modern? Is it unique? Those kinds of things. Interestingly, those came up as fairly impactful on the overall guest experience.
Findings from the J.D. Power 2023 North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Index Study
In their recently released 2023 North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Index Study, Andrea and her team found that:
Guest satisfaction has increased despite the challenges faced by the hotel industry during the pandemic.
Guests reported the highest levels of satisfaction with staff service, followed by guest rooms and food and beverage.
In-person service is what hospitality is all about, and that really came out this year in our study, which we didn't expect. The consumer still values face-to-face service and they know good service when they see it, and I think that's one of the interesting results from this year's study.
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