A one point rise in your Booking.com location score is associated with a 21% higher room rate. That is nearly double the effect of the overall review score, which lifts rate by 11% per point.
The numbers come from a study by Juan Pedro Mellinas and Isabel P. Riquelme (Universidad de Murcia), published in Cornell Hospitality on 23 September 2026 and reported by Xavier Canalís in Hosteltur. In Jakarta, Nairobi, Manila and Rio de Janeiro the premium passes 30% and 40%.
This is not about distance
The location score measures guest perception, not metric distance. The authors found a halo effect: two adjacent hotels on the same street scored 8 and 9.3 on location. The difference was their overall rating, 6.5 against 9.
Rafael Osborne (Profit Guest Services): this is an ADR lever that does not live in your PMS. You cannot move the building. You can move the perception.
So what do you do on Monday? The study points at accessibility and transport, a real guide to the surroundings, the drawbacks of the area named and handled, and saying clearly what is worth walking to.
This content was created with the help of artificial intelligence and reviewed by Rafael Osborne (Profit Guest Services) before publishing.
