The BoHos will reward the boutique, lifestyle and hybrid hotels who provide the very best in guest experiences. The awards will be unique in that the winners will be decided not by judges, but by the hotels' guests, using a combination of aggregated verified guest feedback from review sites and booking engines worldwide, and direct guest feedback via questionnaires. Each will have a 50 percent weighting in a hotel's overall score to give a true picture of the guest experience provided.
The awards are open to any UK or international boutique, lifestyle or hybrid hotel. To enter they need to be using a guest feedback and online reputation management solution in order to provide the necessary verified guest reviews.
The award entry period runs until 28 February. Then each hotel's data will be collected over a two-month period, starting from the 1 March. At the end of the two months, each entrant's guest reviews and direct feedback will be independently evaluated, scored and ranked by Glion students and faculty at the renowned Glion Institute of Higher Education in the UK.
• Best City Hotel 1 - 20 rooms
• Best Country and Coastal Hotel 1-20 rooms
• Best City Hotel 21 - 50 rooms
• Best Country and Coastal Hotel 21-50 rooms
• Best City Hotel 51 rooms and above
• Best Country and Coastal Hotel 51 rooms and above
• Best City Hotel - overall winner
• Best Country and Coastal Hotel - overall winner
• Best International Hotel - overall winner
Piers Brown, CEO of IHM said: "We're delighted to launch the BoHos with GuestRevu. Online reviews - which reflect the overall guest experience - are more important than ever for hoteliers. Not only are they hugely influential in 'humanising' travel decisions, they are the barometer which hotels use to monitor whether they are fulfilling their role and delivering on their promise to the guest. The BoHos will reward and recognise those hotels who are the very best at delivering guest satisfaction, by going that extra mile to give their customers unforgettable hospitality experiences. The winners will ultimately be chosen by the people who really matter - the guests themselves."
Francine Heywood, co-founder and director of sales and marketing at GuestRevu, said: "Guest feedback, both direct through questionnaires and indirect through online review sites, is one of the most powerful marketing tools available to hotels, and by monitoring this and reacting accordingly, hotels can increase loyalty, brand advocacy, and profitability. We're very excited about working with IHM and Glion on the BoHos so we can honour the very best hotels in the boutique and lifestyle sector, and celebrate the fantastic job they are doing in providing amazing service to their guests."
"Unlike other industry awards, the winners will be decided by the end user - the hundreds of thousands of guests who leave online reviews and provide direct feedback, and in doing so, influence their peers in their travel booking decisions. Online review platforms need to cater for all sorts of properties and so, by their very nature, are generic. Just using these as a metric would mean that there is no room for the unique nature and experience offered by the hotels operating in the boutique and lifestyle sectors to make an impact. These awards are here to change that. By including direct guest feedback scores, the awards will be a true reflection of the 'guest's choice' for best hotel," she added.
For more information and to enter the awards, click here.
