Guide · updated September 2026
How to get more Google reviews for your hotel
Most hotels sit on a silent majority: guests who enjoyed their stay and never say so. This guide covers what actually moves your review count, what Google and the FTC do not allow, and how many reviews a property your size should expect each month.
Written for GMs, revenue managers and owners. No gimmicks, no review gating.
Why almost nobody reviews your hotel
Between 0.2% and 1.5% of guests leave a Google review unprompted. The rest are not unhappy. They simply check out, drive home and never think about it again.
The moment passes
Guests feel most positive at checkout. By the time anyone asks, they are at the airport or back at work.
Nobody asked them personally
A printed card or a bulk email is not an ask. People respond to a person, not a poster.
The ask is too much work
Search for the hotel, find the listing, sign in, write something. Every extra step loses guests.
Seven ways to increase Google reviews, ranked by impact
Each one is allowed under Google’s review policies. None of them involves filtering who gets asked.
1
Ask every single guest
Reviews are a volume game before they are a quality game. Asking only the guests you think are happy is review gating, which breaks Google’s policies and the FTC’s 2024 rule on consumer reviews. Ask everyone, every stay.
2
Ask the morning after checkout
Not at checkout, when the guest is rushing, and not a week later. The morning after is when the stay is still fresh and the guest has time.
3
Make the ask personal
Use the guest’s name and something specific about their stay. A generic request reads as marketing; a personal one reads as a thank-you.
4
Make it one tap
Send your Google review link directly. Find it in your Business Profile under Ask for reviews, or build it from your Place ID. Every extra tap costs you reviews.
5
Use a channel guests actually open
Email sits near 5% open rates for post-stay messages. WhatsApp and text messages are opened far more often, usually within minutes.
6
Fix complaints before the guest leaves
Give unhappy guests an easy way to reach a real person during the stay. Resolved problems become neutral or positive reviews. This is service recovery, not suppression: the guest still gets the same invitation to review.
7
Collect mobile numbers at check-in
You cannot message a guest you cannot reach. At one live property, 25% to 34% of departing guests had no mobile number on file. Capturing it at check-in costs nothing and raises your ceiling.
What Google and the FTC do not allow
Hotels lose listings and face fines for these. They are also unnecessary: the tactics above work without them.
Review gating
Asking only happy guests, or screening guests with a survey and sending just the positive ones to Google. Prohibited by Google and treated as review suppression under the FTC’s 2024 rule.
Incentives for reviews
Discounts, free nights, upgrades or prize draws in exchange for a review. Prohibited, even when you do not specify a rating.
Buying or swapping reviews
Paid reviews, review exchanges with other properties, or reviews written by staff, agencies or owners.
Deleting or burying feedback
Suppressing negative reviews, or pressuring a guest to remove one. Under the FTC rule this can carry civil penalties per violation.
Sources: Google Business Profile prohibited and restricted content policy, and the FTC Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials, in force since October 2024.
How many Google reviews should your hotel get each month?
Work from stays, not rooms. Take your rooms, multiply by occupancy and by the nights in the month, then divide by your average length of stay. That is roughly how many parties check out. Around 1% of them review on their own. A personal, well-timed ask typically lifts that to between 2 and 5 times.
100 rooms at 70% occupancy is about 2,100 room nights a month.
At 2.1 nights average stay that is roughly 1,000 checkouts.
Unprompted, that is 5 to 15 reviews. With a personal ask to every guest, 25 to 50 is a realistic target.
What good looks like
Review rate, unprompted
0.2% to 1.5% of stays
Review rate with a personal ask
3% to 6% of stays
Healthy monthly volume, 100 rooms
25 to 50 reviews
Average rating to aim for
4.5★ and rising
Ranges from live UniqueGreet deployments and published hospitality benchmarks. Your mix of business and leisure guests will move them.
Where UniqueGreet fits
UniqueGreet automates the parts most hotels cannot staff: a personal, human voice note to every guest, in their language, at the right moment, with a one-tap review link.
A real voice, every guest
Notes are recorded by real people and personalised per guest. Open rates run above 80%, against about 5% for email.
2 to 5x more reviews
Holiday Inn Express & Suites went from about 7 reviews a month to 37, 38 and 38 over three months.
No review gating
Every guest gets the same invitation to review. Unhappy guests simply reach your GM first, so problems are fixed on property.
Questions hotels ask about Google reviews
How do I increase Google reviews for my hotel?
How many Google reviews should a hotel get per month?
Is it legal to ask hotel guests for Google reviews?
What is review gating?
How do I get my hotel's Google review link?
Do more reviews actually increase bookings?
How fast can a hotel see more reviews?
See how many reviews your hotel is missing.
Get a free Review Conversion Report: your current review rate against the benchmark, and what your Google listing could look like in 12 months.