Like many entrepreneurs, James David Power founded his company at his kitchen table. More than five decades later, business leaders—sometimes reluctantly, sometimes with enthusiasm—still look to J.D. Power for unbiased customer satisfaction research.
Since Dave began sending his first pen-and-paper surveys to car owners via the U.S. mail, companies have evolved from designing products based on input costs to designing products based on consumer needs and wants. The process of obtaining customer feedback has also progressed from mail surveys to telephone surveys to online surveys and now review platforms such as Yelp and Tripadvisor.
Today, there is no shortage of “listening posts” that companies can use to monitor customer satisfaction. J.D. Power has evolved as a company as well, now conducting over 150 customer satisfaction benchmark studies across many industries including travel and hospitality.
The very first J.D. Power Hotel Guest Satisfaction Index Study was published in 1997. This early Study included only guests staying for business purposes at “upscale” brands. Westin Hotels, then owned by Starwood, was the first hotel brand to win the J.D. Power Award for highest overall guest satisfaction.
The 1990s saw the large hotel chains migrate away from property ownership to focus solely on management and franchising. Dot-coms were established and online bookings soared, reducing the hotel industry’s reliance on brick-and-mortar travel agencies. After the Sept. 11 attacks, the early 2000s saw the industry band together—along with airlines and destination marketing organizations—to rebuild consumer confidence that travel was safe. For gathering and monitoring guest feedback, the launch of Tripadvisor put guest reviews front and center in the hotel manager’s purview. This real-time feedback allowed hotel staff to improve the guest experience in minutes instead of days or weeks.
Throughout these years, J.D. Power expanded its survey-sampling capabilities, reaching increasing numbers of travelers in the general marketplace. In 2006, the Study expanded beyond the U.S. to include Canadian residents as well as guests’ stays at non-U.S. properties in Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean.
As the previous decades yielded ever-increasing travel demand, investor interest in the hotel industry surged in the 2010s. The large hotel franchisors began to offer hotel owners more and more new brands to choose from, particularly in the limited-service hotel segments. By 2011, the Study’s overall guest-satisfaction ranking included 66 brands. That year, Smith Travel Research (now the STR division of CoStar) became the Study’s official third-party source for the hotel-property and chain-scale data upon which J.D. Power still relies today.
The study first began to ask guests about using hotel apps in 2017. The creation of “soft brands” allowed independent hotel owners to reap the benefits of the large chain platforms while maintaining the uniqueness of their properties; thus, J.D. Power began benchmarking soft brands in 2018.
The Roaring Twenties
Then came 2020. As the onset of the pandemic was devastating the industry, J.D. Power continued to capture guest satisfaction among those hotel guests who were still traveling. New survey questions were added to gather guests’ opinions about the actions hotel properties were taking in response to the pandemic. The Study provided hotel brands with on-the-ground guest insights into how hotels were operating, such as whether guests saw staff wearing masks, signage throughout the hotel outlining cleaning and sanitization practices, hand sanitizer stations and alternative F&B options due to closure of restaurants or breakfast areas. The Study also asked guests about their awareness of the brand’s efforts to help guests financially by allowing free cancellation or waiving fees. Despite all of the industry’s challenges that year, J.D. Power was able to launch the first Third-Party Hotel Management Hotel Guest Satisfaction Benchmark, which compared guest satisfaction across third-party managed portfolios for the first time.
This brings us to 2025 when the industry is once again experiencing disruption, this time due to artificial intelligence. While the Study has reported guests’ usage of social media, mobile apps and in-room connectivity for many years now, J.D. Power aims to ensure the Study remains relevant and timely. Accordingly, the 2026 Study (recently launched in June for publication next summer) includes new survey questions about such topics as the impact of social media influencers on brand selection, the usage of online chat for reservations and the usage of AI platforms and tools to search for hotels.
What hasn’t changed in the J.D. Power Hotel Guest Satisfaction Study? For hotel brands, the Study’s primary power (pun intended) has always been the ability to benchmark detailed guest satisfaction performance against other brands. Just as Dave Power’s first surveys asked car owners to rate the quality of their vehicles, the Hotel Guest Satisfaction Study continues to ask guests to rate the quality of their hotel stays. Guest ratings of front-desk service quality, guestroom cleanliness, condition of guestroom furnishings and quality of food and beverage were included back in 1997, and these hotel “table stakes” are still measured to this day.
The 2026 J.D. Power North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Study marks the survey’s 30th year. Three decades on, J.D. Power continues providing the industry with data and insights that drive continuous guest experience improvement.
About the author: Andrea Stokes is the practice lead, hospitality at J.D. Power