Bottom's up: Asia hotels' minibars beat America's

Make mine a double.

It seems like booze lovers are going gaga over Asia's hotel minibars and ditching those in America as a recent hotel ratings reveal that hotel minibars in Asia are highly rated by hotel guests.

Wego and TrustYou unveiled their findings in their recent regional hotel ratings. They aimed to find out which of these areas are scoring the highest hotel ratings and what features do travellers rate the The Asia Pacific region, which incorporates Australia/New Zealand, North and Southeast Asia, came out on top scoring 85.8 percent overall in 16 categories that included service, facilities, food, romance, luxury, romance, nightlife, price and more. 

“Using TrustYou’s unique semantic engine, we analysed a sample of more than six million verified reviews in 23 languages to understand what travellers are saying about their hotel experience in regions across the globe. Overall scores were close, however the analysis shows that different regions are known for different amenities/services,” said Benjamin Jost, CEO and co-founder of “APAC scored very highly in areas such as romantic atmosphere, best rooms and hotel beds, minibars and perhaps not surprisingly, with locations such as Thailand and Bali, wellness,” said Joachim Holte, Chief Marketing Officer for Wego.

Across all regions, a friendly atmosphere scored the highest ratings with North America taking out that honour rated at 94.06 per cent.

“Of all the regions, North America rated highest for their friendly atmosphere, hotels catering to solo travellers, luxury and nightlife,” Holte added. 

“Europe, the Middle East and Africa, were only 0.4 per cent below APAC in the overall top scores, but along with APAC rated highest in 6 of the 16 verified review categories from TrustYou, while North America topped out in four categories,” Holte continued. “Europe, the Middle East and Africa got top rankings for food and breakfast, internet connectivity, location, service and most importantly for some, price.”

“Probably the biggest disparity between scores was for the hotel minibar, rated at only 34.86 per cent in North America, compared to 51 and 61 percent for APAC and Europe/ME/Africa respectively,” Holte observed.

“What’s interesting is that in spite of the final numbers, hotel review scores were fairly close overall, some with only a couple of percentage points between them,” Holte summarised. “It’s also interesting that the highest scoring categories were a friendly atmosphere, nightlife, service, location and romance, all rated at 87 per cent and above.”

“It is great to see that hoteliers are stepping up their game when it comes to providing travellers with a friendly atmosphere and great service,” concluded Jost. “We’ve seen time and again that delivering stellar service is one of the most important ingredients for a great hotel stay.”