Review Widgets for Holiday Lets and Vacation Rentals

A holiday let usually earns its reviews on Airbnb, Booking.com or Vrbo, and those reviews stay there. When a guest finds your own website to book direct, the proof that convinced them on the platform is missing. A review widget brings it across. The catch is that the platforms collect, publish and score reviews in different ways, and a widget that ignores that can show a guest something confusing. Here is how each one works and how to put them together.

→ Build a widget with several platforms, or start with Airbnb or Booking.com alone.

Why Show Guest Reviews on Your Own Booking Site?

A direct booking saves you the platform's fee, but the guest gives up something too: the reviews that told them the place is as described. On your own site they meet photos and a calendar and nothing that another guest said. Showing your platform reviews next to the booking form closes that gap. It also tells a returning guest, or someone who saw you on Airbnb and searched your name, that this is the same property with the same record.

Reviews belong to each listing, not to you as a host. If you run three cottages, you have three separate review sets, and the strongest page for each is that cottage's own page.

Which Review Platforms Matter for a Holiday Let?

Airbnb. After checkout, guest and host each have 14 days to review. Airbnb publishes both reviews when both are in, or when the 14 days end, whichever comes first. The overall star rating and the written review are public; the guest's individual category ratings go to the host and Airbnb only, while the listing shows the averages for cleanliness, accuracy, check-in, communication, location and value.

Booking.com. Only a guest who booked through Booking.com can leave a review, and a reservation cancelled before check-in gets no review invitation. Guests score the stay from 1 to 10. Since the end of January 2025 the property score gives recent reviews more weight than older ones, so it can move faster than a simple average would.

Vrbo. Like Airbnb, Vrbo keeps a review hidden until host and guest have both reviewed or 14 days have passed, and a review can't be edited once it is submitted. Ratings are out of 5 stars.

Google. Google does not allow a Business Profile for a rental property such as a vacation home, so a single holiday let usually has no Google reviews of its own. A letting agency or management company with an office that guests can visit is eligible, and for those businesses Google is often the review set people see first.

Tripadvisor. Worth adding if your property or agency is listed there and guests review it, especially in destinations where travellers plan on Tripadvisor.

How Do Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo and Google Reviews Compare?

The double-blind rule on Airbnb and Vrbo explains a common worry: a guest says they left a lovely review, and it isn't anywhere. Until you have reviewed them too, or the 14 days are up, the platform hasn't published it, so no widget can show it either.

Should You Combine Every Platform in One Widget?

For most holiday lets, yes. One block of reviews from Airbnb, Booking.com and Vrbo shows that guests from every channel say the same thing, and each card is marked with the platform it came from, so a visitor can see where every quote started.

The part to get right is the score. A 9.2 out of 10 on Booking.com and a 4.8 out of 5 on Airbnb are not numbers you can add up, and Booking.com's recency weighting means even a converted figure would not match. Show each platform's own score as it publishes it. BlooTrue's header always shows the rating the platform itself reports, never one averaged from the cards on screen, so the number on your site matches the number a guest sees on your listing.

If you only use one channel, a single-platform widget is simpler and the free plan covers it.

Where Should Reviews Go on a Holiday Let Website?

Beside the booking calendar or enquiry form. That is where a guest decides, and where a doubt about cleanliness or check-in costs you the booking.

On each property's own page. Airbnb reviews belong to a listing, so the reviews for the sea-view flat should sit on the sea-view flat's page, not on the page for the cottage up the road.

A short strip on the homepage. A few recent reviews and your platform scores near the top tell a first-time visitor that real guests have stayed.

How Do You Add a Review Widget to a Holiday Let Site?

What Does a Holiday Let Review Widget Cost?

BlooTrue's free plan gives you one widget from one platform with unlimited views and your latest 10 reviews from the day you create it, with a small BlooTrue badge. Starter is $9 a month or $84 a year: new reviews sync daily, the badge goes away, and one widget can blend 3 platforms, such as Airbnb, Booking.com and Google. Pro, at $29 a month, covers up to 10 locations and blends every platform you connect. Other tools meter views instead; our review widget pricing comparison lists what 11 of them allow for free.

Sources, read November 8, 2026: Airbnb, Reviews for homes; Vrbo, How do I submit a review; Booking.com content guidelines; 10 Minutes News for Hoteliers on Booking.com's recency-weighted score (June 2025); Google Business Profile eligibility.