Miami Beach's Hotels Rank Worst in the USA, Survey Reveals
Update: November 27, 2012
CheapHotels.org recently pitted 30 destinations in the United States and Canada against each other in terms of their overall hotel quality. Evaluations written by customers over the past 12 months following their stays served as the basis for the survey. The website then compiled the results and ranked each city accordingly.
To ensure the highest comparability among the many destinations, CheapHotels considered only those 3-star hotels that had a location within the city center. Two leading hotel-booking sites, Expedia and Priceline, served as the aggregator from which reviews were drawn. All reviews were compiled and then deemed positive, neutral or negative, depending on the rating associated with them.
When the rankings were complete Miami Beach easily walked away the loser. There, 24%, or almost 1 in 4, of guests expressed disappointment with their hotel by awarding it a negative review. As a result, the city ranked dead last among all destinations considered. Joining Miami Beach at the bottom of the list were Atlantic City and Ottawa. There, 21% and 20% respectively of all recent visitors have posted negative reviews.
On the flipside: Washington, D.C. tops the U.S. rankings, with 73% of its hotel reviews being positive, 15% neutral and only 12% negative. One destination in Canada, however, performed even better. In Quebec City, 75% of all travelers have been happy with their hotel stay, while only 11% have awarded their lodgings there a negative evaluation.
For each of the 30 destinations CheapHotels.org considered for this survey, the following table shows the percentage of positive, neutral and negative hotel reviews among all reviews of 3-star hotels over the past 12 months.
| Destination | Positive | Neutral | Negative |
| Quebec City | 75% | 14% | 11% |
| Washington DC | 73% | 15% | 12% |
| Chicago | 72% | 15% | 13% |
| Boston | 71% | 16% | 13% |
| Montreal | 71% | 15% | 14% |
| Orlando | 70% | 16% | 14% |
| Philadelphia | 70% | 16% | 14% |
| San Antonio | 69% | 16% | 15% |
| Anaheim | 68% | 16% | 15% |
| Jacksonville | 70% | 14% | 16% |
| San Francisco | 68% | 16% | 16% |
| Houston | 67% | 17% | 16% |
| New York | 65% | 19% | 16% |
| Niagara Falls | 68% | 15% | 17% |
| Toronto | 68% | 15% | 17% |
| Dallas | 67% | 16% | 17% |
| San Diego | 66% | 17% | 17% |
| Atlanta | 65% | 18% | 17% |
| Los Angeles | 64% | 19% | 17% |
| Saint Louis | 67% | 15% | 18% |
| New Orleans | 66% | 16% | 18% |
| Phoenix | 65% | 17% | 18% |
| Vancouver | 64% | 18% | 18% |
| Panama City Beach | 62% | 19% | 19% |
| Myrtle Beach | 61% | 20% | 19% |
| Las Vegas | 60% | 21% | 19% |
| Honolulu | 59% | 22% | 19% |
| Ottawa | 57% | 23% | 20% |
| Atlantic City | 56% | 23% | 21% |
| Miami Beach | 54% | 22% | 24% |
About the Methodology
For 30 destinations in the United States and Canada, every 3-star hotel located centrally or close to any of the main tourist attractions was considered. For those hotels, each guest hotel review posted over the past 12 months was categorized as positive, neutral or negative. That categorization went as follows:
For Expedia, where client ratings run from 1 to 5, 5 and 4 were deemed positive, 3 was established as neutral, and 1 and 2 were considered negative. For Priceline, where ratings run from 1 to 10, 10 and 9 were established as positive, 8 and 7 were set as neutral, and anything below 7 was assumed to be negative.
