First a question: Can a guest leave a star rating without writing a review?
I ask because of a big disconnect between recent reviews and some star ratings. The reviews were all glowing without exception and the “overall experience” was pretty much all 5 with one 4. However, when I looked at the individual reviews (after reading @faheem’s post about 2 stars for arrival) I found that one lot of guests had given us ONE star for location and TWO for value! I have to say I was shocked, both at someone’s obvious two-facedness since there was no review that was less than great, and how a location that has 5 stars from evryone else can suddenly be so terrible!
I make a big point of warning people in our listing that we are not on a public transport route, we are not in the city centre, and though we have a free minibus service that connects with the bus into the city (about 20 minutes to half an hour altogether), this only runs at weekdays and at certain times of the day. What we offer is peace, tranquility, a nice garden and pool, shade from the Summer heat in a really lovely area.
My husband now wants us to actually make it a condition of booking that guests agree to rent a car to avoid anything like this happening again, although most of the non-drivers we’ve had seem to manage ok and don’t mind. Obviously someone did!
Any thoughts? I’m beginning to think the “Rating explanation” proposed on another thread is not a bad idea …