The hotel price comparison website trivago.co.uk has put together a ranking of European and British cities according to the online reputation of their hotels, and concludes that out of over 1,000 European cities, London has the worst reputation among travellers.

The results of the study show that hotels in London and Birmingham have a much lower reputation than hotels based in other European countries and cities. Out of 100 points, London and Birmingham hotels have a collective score of 72.2 and 74.15 respectively. Of course, factors such as room price and hotel quality tend to affect review scores heavily, and this may partly explain why an expensive city such as London might receive lower scores than others. Nevertheless, such price and quality considerations are true for all cities, and in contrast to London and Birmingham, many other cities have significantly better ratings: Berlin has an average score of 78.88, Madrid has a score of 78.35 and Rome is at 77.14. In fact, out of 1000 cities evaluated, the only cities to fare worse than London are the Maltese city of Sliema (71.00) and the small Spanish towns of Lloret del Mar (69.57) and El Arenal (66.78).

Βrussels, Geneva and Amsterdam also have bad reputations
London and Birmingham are joined at the bottom of the ranking by major city destinations such as Copenhagen (74.29), Amsterdam (74.42), Paris (74.58) and Geneva (74.88). The hospitality industries of these cities - destinations popular among tourists and business travellers alike - have clearly not impressed the travellers who have stay there.

It might be surmised that city size or popularity leads to lower hotel ratings, but further evidence shows that this is not the case; the cities with the best hotel reputations in Europe easily reach scores above 80 out of 100. The German city of Dresden is at the very top, with an average hotel rating of 82.32. It is followed by Krakow, with a score of 81.09 and by the Belgian town of Bruges, whose average hotel rating is 81.03. Other important tourist destinations such as Venice (80.72), Barcelona (79.32), Budapest (80.24), Florence (79.75), and Berlin (78.88) equally demonstrate that cities can achieve excellent hotel reputations despite receiving significant numbers of tourists or business travellers each month.

Belfast, Canterbury and Cardiff the best rated cities in the UK
On a national scale, the hotel industry in the UK ranks fairly well. The top rated cities in the UK consist of Belfast, Cardiff and Canterbury, whose scores range between 79 and 81 out of a hundred. Scottish destinations have also earned good reputations, with big cities like Edinburgh and Aberdeen achieving scores of 78.63 and 77.88 respectively. Glasgow’s reputation is less stellar, but still respectable with an average hotel rating of 75.95. In England, popular city destinations such as Liverpool (78.78), Manchester (77.37) and Oxford (76.51) all have achieved good hotel scores. Birmingham, however, joins London with one of the worst hotel ratings in both the UK and Europe – 74.15. It is joined by Coventry (72.80), Brighton (73.64) and Portsmouth (74.08) as the lowest scored cities in the UK.

The study is based on European cities and towns with more than 50 hotels. Taken into consideration were over 28 million reviews, found on trivago and its partner booking sites.