Hotel Tech Report (HTR) is where a large share of hoteliers check a vendor before they ever fill in a demo form. If your product sits on page three of its category, or has eleven reviews from 2022, many buyers will never reach your website. The good news is that HTR publishes how its ranking works, which means a vendor can manage its presence there in a structured way instead of hoping customers drift in.

This guide sets out the steps in order, from claiming the profile to keeping reviews flowing every month. It is written for founders and revenue leaders at hotel tech companies, not for hoteliers.

Why the ranking matters more than it did

Review sites have become part of how software buyers trust AI answers as well as a destination in their own right. G2's April 2026 research, a survey of 1,076 B2B software buyers, found 45% named citations from software review sites as the most confidence-inspiring signal in an AI chatbot's answer. G2's 2026 Buyer Behavior Report found review sites (38%) were the top source shaping which vendors make a buyer's shortlist, ahead of AI chatbots (37%). Those are cross-industry B2B figures, not hotel-only, but the direction matches what we describe in why hotel tech review sites decide deals before you hear about them.

HTR's own vendor page puts the logic plainly: as more hoteliers from your core segments recommend your product, you surface higher in the results for similar hoteliers researching your category. In other words, the ranking rewards the specific customers you want more of.

How the HTScore ranking works

When Hotel Tech Report announced it had passed 50,000 verified reviews in May 2024, it described the HTScore as built on four groups of drivers. The table below lists them with the part a vendor can actually influence.

Product pages describe the Hotel Tech Score in shorter form as a composite of user satisfaction, review quantity, review recency and vendor-submitted information. Three of the four groups respond to work you can start this month.

How to get reviews and rankings on Hotel Tech Report, step by step

1. Claim and complete your vendor profile. Create the vendor account, list every product in the right category, and fill in features, integrations, pricing guidance and screenshots. Profile completeness is named as a ranking input, and an empty profile tells a buyer the vendor is not paying attention.

2. Choose the category and segment you want to win. HTR personalises lists by the buyer's location and lets hoteliers filter by room count, PMS and hotel type. Decide which segment matters most, for example independent boutique hotels in Europe, and focus review requests there rather than chasing a global average.

3. Build the review request into your customer lifecycle. Ask at moments of proven value: a few weeks after go-live once the first results are visible, after a positive quarterly review, and after a support issue is resolved well. Our guide on how to ask hotel customers for reviews without annoying them covers wording and timing.

4. Ask the people who use the product daily. Reviews show the reviewer's role and property size, such as a revenue manager at a 50 to 74 room resort. A mix of general managers, revenue managers and front office users reads as more credible than five reviews from owners alone.

5. Keep a steady monthly cadence. Recency is a ranking input, so ten reviews spread across a year work harder than ten collected in one week and then nothing. Set a monthly target per customer success manager and report on it with the rest of your retention metrics.

6. Get your integrations verified and your partners on record. Partner ecosystem is a separate driver. Ask the integration partners you share customers with to confirm the integration on HTR and to leave an expert recommendation.

7. Earn the trust badges. Product pages show whether a vendor has met the criteria for the Certificate of Excellence and whether its support processes are GCSC certified. Read the criteria in the HTR help centre and close the gaps.

8. Plan for the HotelTechAwards period. The awards concentrate review activity. During the three-month 2021 awards period, HTR says hoteliers contributed 10,227 verified new reviews. Prepare a list of happy customers in advance so you are not starting from zero when it opens.

9. Use the reviews in sales and marketing. Link your HTR profile from your website and proposals, quote reviews from properties similar to the prospect, and send reviewers a thank-you note. A review a prospect can verify does more than a case study they cannot.

A real profile, read the way a buyer reads it

Take the HotelRunner channel manager profile as it appeared when we checked it in October 2026. It showed a 4.8 rating from 115 reviews, a rank of 15 out of 148 in Channel Managers, and "96% recommended by 121 hotels". It also showed a breakdown of reviewers by size and country, with Turkey (67) the largest group, and noted that the vendor had not yet met the criteria for the Certificate of Excellence and had not had its support processes certified.

A buyer reading that page learns three things quickly: customers rate it highly, its review base is concentrated in one market, and two trust signals are missing. None of that is a criticism of HotelRunner. It shows how much a profile says before a sales call, and how each element maps to a step in the list above.

Mistakes that cost vendors rank

• The once-a-year push. A burst of reviews before the awards, then silence, leaves the profile looking stale for most of the year.

• Reviews from the wrong segment. If you sell to 100-room city hotels but most reviews come from small guesthouses, buyers in your target segment will not see themselves in the profile.

• Asking unhappy customers by accident. Use a customer health score to decide who receives a request.

• Writing or steering reviews. HTR verifies reviewers. Scripted reviews read badly and put the profile at risk.

• Ignoring the integration section. An unverified integration list makes a strong product look isolated.

What good looks like after two quarters

Set targets you can measure on the profile itself, not vague brand goals. A sensible two-quarter plan looks like this.

Reviews also work best alongside a wider proof programme. A small group of named customers who take reference calls, described in our post on building a reference property programme, turns a strong profile into closed deals. Both sit inside the broader system covered in our hotel tech GTM strategy guide.

The short version

Hotel Tech Report ranks vendors on review quantity, quality and recency, partner integrations, profile completeness and support. Complete the profile, choose the segment you want to win, ask the right users at moments of value every month, get partners to verify integrations, and use the reviews in every sales conversation.

If your review profile is thin and you are not sure how many deals it is costing you, a free revenue leak audit will show where buyers drop you before the first call.

Frequently Asked Questions