Restaurants feel the love online in February 2020

February saw Google and Facebook ratings hold steady from January, and a slight increase of 0.1 on TripAdvisor – however all channels increased 0.1 when compared to February 2019

The restaurant sector drove this increase, with all Google and TripAdvisor reporting a 0.1 increase year on year here, and Facebook average scoring moved from 4.3 to 4.6. Looking at the Pub/Bar sector, only Google managed to see an increase year on year, with other channels staying still.

We continue to see opinion become more polarised, with share of neutral reviews dropping on Google and TripAdvisor, and compared to February 2019 positive reviews increased by 2.7% on Google and 1% on TripAdvisor

Although Valentines was mentioned in a number of reviews, other factors came through as stronger themes in the positive reviews in February, with Lunch (mentioned in 2% of positive restaurant reviews), Menu and Meal (both mentioned in 3% of positive restaurant reviews) larger themes than birthday or valentines (both mentioned in 1% of positive restaurant reviews)

In the Pub/Bar sector, cocktails continue to drive positive reviews, mentioned in 5% of positive reviews here, and lunch was mentioned in 4% of the positive reviews, with valentines not managing even 1% here.

Looking at the negative reviews, wait times continue to be the key issue for operators in both sectors to focus on, with 24% of negative reviews in Pubs/Bars and 29% in the restaurants containing the word “wait”.  Around a fifth of negative reviews in both sectors contained the word “time”, confirming that if a guest feels something is taking time away from them, they are much more likely to leave a negative review.