Traveller Review Awards 2022: celebrating your exceptional hospitality

From accommodations to transport providers, this year’s Traveller Review Awards celebrate the incredible hospitality of more than 1.25 million Booking.com partners around the world

Despite ongoing challenges and uncertainties facing the entire industry last year, Booking.com partners delivered millions of unforgettable experiences for global travellers. In our tenth annual Traveller Review Awards, a total of 1,261,273 partners – including accommodation and transport providers – in 220 countries and territories are being recognised for their consistent dedication to outstanding hospitality. 

“As the travel industry has remained vigilant and flexible in light of the continued uncertainty and travel restrictions we’ve seen over the course of the past year, the passion and dedication of our partners to create safe and welcoming travel experiences for everyone all over the world has continued to shine through,” says Arjan Dijk, SVP and Chief Marketing Officer at Booking.com. “Looking towards the future with renewed optimism and hope, with these awards we recognise the incredible hospitality our partners deliver to travellers each and every day and thank them for their amazing devotion as we continue to rebuild together.”

This year’s awards draw on more than 232 million verified reviews from real travellers that have used our platform to stay at an accommodation, rent a car or book a taxi. To be recognised with an award, accommodations and car rental pick-up locations had to have an average review score of 8.0 (out of 10) or higher based on at least 3 or 5 reviews respectively.

Travellers continue to appreciate apartments and unique stays 

The most accommodations recognised with a 2022 award were in Italy (162,272), followed by Spain (93,130), France (89,186), Croatia (58,630), Germany (69,702), Russia (59,661), the United Kingdom (53,623), Brazil (46,928), the United States (43,417) and Australia (18,663).

Apartments were the most-award property type globally for the fifth year in a row, with 561,843 partners recognised for their efforts. Hotels took the second spot with 172,530 properties awarded, followed by holiday homes (148,962), guest houses (98,466) and B&Bs (79,859).

Italy remained at the top of the list, leading the pack with the highest number of homes, apartments and other unique places to stay receiving an award (144,658). Rounding out the top five countries were Spain (83,654), France (79,278), Croatia (57,629) and Germany (56,977). 

How partners are celebrating their win

For Booking.com partner Kees Hogetoorn, Director of Sales and Marketing at Sofitel Legend The Grand Amsterdam, the award provides both recognition and a benchmark for guest satisfaction. “Booking.com’s Traveller Review Award is especially important because it’s a direct result of traveller reviews. It’s our guests expressing their experience at our property, and that’s something we take very seriously. Monitoring our traveller review score each year helps to provide a benchmark for the property’s reputation score (RPS), while indicating if we’re improving our guest satisfaction year over year.”

To celebrate their win, Hogetoorn makes sure to share the award both internally and externally with guests and staff. “We always put our award in our monthly newsletter, as well as sharing it on social media and displaying the printed award in a display cabinet. It’s important to celebrate winning awards and to showcase the achievement to guests. We also communicate it internally to recognise and praise our staff, who go above and beyond to create exceptional guest experiences every day with our Heartist programme.”

Warm and welcoming staff make the difference

The awards revealed that travellers value staff, cleanliness and location the most in a stay, with these three attributes ranking higher than others evaluated – including facilities and value for money. This demonstrates the importance of welcoming, friendly interactions, as well as health and hygiene in light of the pandemic’s ongoing influence. 

Transport partners in the spotlight

For the third year in a row, rental car and airport taxi providers were also recognised for their excellent service and smooth travel experiences, including 1,628 rental car pick-up locations across 160 countries. Spain topped the list with 220 rental car pick-up locations receiving a 2022 award, followed by Italy (177), France (141), the United States (108) and Australia (98). This year, 7,091 airport taxi drivers across 51 taxi providers, spanning 1,400 cities globally are also being honoured with an award.