Traveller Review Awards 2022: Celebrating your exceptional hospitality

Despite ongoing challenges and uncertainties facing the entire industry last year, Booking.com partners delivered millions of unforgettable experiences for global travelers. In our tenth annual Traveller Review Awards, a total of 1,261,273 partners—including accommodation and transportation providers—in 220 countries and territories are being recognized for their 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 toward the future with renewed optimism and hope, with these awards we recognize the incredible hospitality our partners deliver to travelers 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 travelers who have used our platform to stay at an accommodation, rent a car, or book a taxi. To be recognized with an award, accommodations and rental car 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.

Travelers continue to appreciate apartments and unique stays 

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

Italy stayed 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 traveler reviews. It’s our guests expressing their experience at our property, and that’s something we take very seriously. Monitoring our traveler review score each year helps 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 recognize and praise our staff, who go above and beyond to create exceptional guest experiences every day with our Heartist program.”

Warm and welcoming staff make the difference

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

Transportation partners in the spotlight

For the third year in a row, rental car and airport taxi providers were also recognized 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 honored with an award.