Guests are the ones to be reviewed at Art Series hotels, and it’s not an April Fools’ Day joke.
Art Series Hotel Group is turning the tables on traditional hotel review systems and trialling a new program called Reverse Reviews where the hotel staff reviews its guests.
People staying at any of the six Art Series Hotels from 17th April to 31st May, 2015 can opt-in to participate.
Their behaviour will be assessed and ranked using a point system and published online and guests scoring a rating of four or five stars will be rewarded with complimentary stays.
Art Series Hotel Group Marketing Director Ryan Tuckerman said the program is in response to the huge uptake of online review sites such as TripAdvisor.
“With more than 40 million reviews of hotels and restaurants on TripAdvisor alone, Reverse Reviews flips the process on its head and provides a way for us to recognise and reward good behaviour in a fun and light-hearted way,” he said.
“We are really proud of our review results and it’s no secret that hotels are incredibly competitive on these sites. We think our guests will respond in the same way.
“More than 60 per cent of our penthouse stays are already deriving from upgrades and ‘comps’, so now we’re looking at rewarding our best customers in a more formal and structured way.”
The idea is further backed by a study conducted by independent research company Galaxy Research, and commissioned by Art Series Hotel Group, which reveals that guest behaviour is better than what most people expect, but petty theft and deliberately parading naked in front of windows is taking place under the veil of anonymity.
Findings from the research showed that of the 1,054 people surveyed:
-On average women are slightly better behaved than men;
-People believe the most common acts of bad behaviour are taking items and not
paying (19 per cent), and not declaring mini bar items on departure (18 per cent);
-30 per cent of those surveyed have participated in some form of anti-social hotel
behaviour, including walking in front of the windows naked (20 per cent) and small-
scale hotel theft (10 per cent);
-Women from Queensland with incomes of less than $40K are less likely to trash a hotel
room than men from Sydney;
-The wealthier you are the more likely you are to be rude to hotel staff (76 per cent of
people with incomes of $90K and more); and
-The poorer you are the less likely you are to take an item without paying.
So what does the perfect hotel guest look like? Based on the survey results, women make better hotel guests than men in general. They are less likely to steal from the mini-bar, trash the room or flash themselves to passers-by.
Women from regional Victoria or Tasmania, aged 50-plus, married with no children, who work in blue-collar jobs with an income of $40K or less a year are least likely to participate in any of the anti-social behaviours listed in the research.