I asked once from an innkeeper that has 200+ and wins awards from them and is now nearly in foreclosure...and I was called a shark or something. Basically told to rack off.
I truly wanted to know why those guests traveling to small town USA to a small B&B would post so many more reviews than anyone else we have ever known.
For some reason the question was considered wrong and how dare we think it is not all on the up and up and we all got the backlash.
Of all the guests who bring up TA on their own and tell me they found us there and will be sure to write a lovely review the very minute they step in their door...never do. So yes, there is something more to it. I don't care what anyone says, solicit all the reviews you want, it is harder to get them, unless there is a twist to this equation somewhere.
DISCLAIMER - I am speaking of Inns here in the USA. Not overseas, things are different there, I realize this, I can only speak for this country and how things operate here. Our UK guests are the most willing to read reviews and write them. They rely on TA and others while making their travel plans. The 200+ was from an "other" website, not TA. So perhaps the "other" website allows the use of the one pc to write the reviews, unlike TA who more diligently monitors that IP..
oh my...can I guess who that was? My good buddies have just for some reason been put on the TA site and watch list as the #2 Romantic Inn in the US. They don't tout that..never have..they don't have a clue as to why they were put in that category..but hey..they will take it. Their website has been hit like crazy the past week...solidly.... from TA...they are loving it!!!
And...they NEVER solicit a review from their guests and over 400 have put in reviews to date. For them, it has become their cash cow.
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One of my issues with TA is that in the UK to officially be a B&B you can only take up to 6 guests and your property is classed as a private residence (your home), more than 6 and you become a business and a commercial property (with all the extra legal issues that entails).
We're a B&B with 3 rooms, but on the TA B&B listings there a numerous "Guest Houses" with up to 12 rooms calling themselves B&Bs. Legally they are a guest house, but ok, they can call themselves what they like, depending on the facilities they offer, but on TA we have no chance of getting anywhere near as many reviews as us becuase on an average day they have 2 to 3 times as many guests as us.
Having said that, I think there are several factors used in the calculation of ratings of which number of reviews is one.
For those of you that say even though you email people they still don't review, when are you emailing? When I get home from holiday my mail box can have up to 500 emails in it. I group them into 3, the urgent ones I action immediately, the rubbish I delete and all the rest all sit in my Inbox for weeks waiting for me to get around to actioning, until I'm sick of seeing them and then most get deleted. I suspect that for most guests review request emails fall into the last category.
So, on the morning people check out I write them a review request email, I personalise it so if for example I know they're going to xxx after leaving us I'll put "we hope you enjoyed your stay in xxx", so it doesn't look as though I'm just sending the same thing out to everyone. Then I put the date several days after I know they'll get home on the subject line and save it to my "Drafts" folder. Then all I have to do is every few days check my drafts folder and any that have reached their alloted date I remove the date from the subject line and send. I try to avoid Mondays for the same reason as above, and also try to send during the morning so I catch people in the office.
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