Best questions for hotel guest survey about room cleanliness

Here are some of the best questions for a hotel guest survey about room cleanliness, plus tips on crafting them for maximum insight. If you want to build a guest survey in seconds, you can use Specific to generate one effortlessly—just describe your goals, and let the AI take care of the rest.

Best open-ended questions for hotel guest survey about room cleanliness

Open-ended questions invite guests to share detailed thoughts and unfiltered feedback—perfect for uncovering nuanced experiences. We recommend using these when you want authentic stories, first impressions, or suggestions for improvement, rather than simple ratings or yes/no answers. They’re especially handy for identifying rare issues or unexpected highlights.

1. How would you describe the cleanliness of your hotel room upon arrival?

2. Were there any specific areas of your room that stood out as exceptionally clean or unclean? Please elaborate.

3. Did you notice anything missing or overlooked by housekeeping during your stay?

4. Can you share any examples of how room cleanliness affected your comfort?

5. If there was a problem with cleanliness, how did the hotel staff respond?

6. What’s the most important factor you consider regarding hotel room cleanliness?

7. Did you encounter any cleaning products or fragrances you found pleasant or bothersome?

8. How does our room cleanliness compare to your expectations or past hotel experiences?

9. What improvements, if any, could we make to our room cleaning process?

10. Is there anything else about your room’s cleanliness you’d like us to know?

With about 96% of patients in NHS hospitals rating their rooms as very or fairly clean, there’s clear evidence that perceived cleanliness has a direct link to satisfaction and trust. For hotels, collecting unfiltered feedback through open-ended questions can reveal claims or concerns before they reach public reviews, ensuring standards truly matter to your guests. [3]

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for hotel guest survey about room cleanliness

Single-select multiple-choice questions are best when you need quantifiable data—such as trends or satisfaction levels—or to “break the ice” with easier, less demanding queries. Sometimes, guests find it faster (and less mentally taxing) to select from succinct options than to formulate a write-up, which encourages more responses and lets you dig deeper with targeted follow-ups.

Question: How would you rate the overall cleanliness of your room?

• Excellent

• Good

• Fair

• Poor

Question: Which of these aspects of cleanliness mattered most during your stay?

• Bedding/fresh linens

• Bathroom hygiene

• Smell/air quality

• Surface dusting

• Other

Question: Did you notice any cleanliness issues during your stay?

• No issues noticed

• Minor issues (did not affect my stay)

• Major issues (affected my comfort)

When to follow up with “why?” Always add a follow-up “why?” question if a guest selects anything less than “Excellent” or mentions any issues. This digs beneath the surface, letting you pinpoint the root causes behind lower ratings. Example: If someone selects “Fair” for overall cleanliness, follow up with “Could you tell us what part of the room felt less clean to you?” This contextual probing leads to actionable insights.

When and why to add the “Other” choice? Always add “Other” as an option to catch feedback that doesn’t fit your predefined list. Follow-up questions for these “Other” selections can surface surprising patterns you wouldn’t otherwise discover, like a guest who’s particular about window smudges or forgotten hangers.

NPS-type question for room cleanliness: is it worth asking?

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) question—“How likely are you to recommend our hotel to a friend or colleague based on room cleanliness?”—works well for hotels aiming to benchmark their reputation on this critical factor. Cleanliness is a universal driver of guest satisfaction and can make or break recommendations; just a one-point jump in guest satisfaction is linked to a substantial financial impact, with a $10 million boost in annual revenue for each point increase. [1]

By including an NPS-style question in your survey, you can pinpoint not only how guests rate your cleanliness but also the likelihood they’ll generate positive word of mouth. If you want to see how this looks, use the NPS survey generator for hotel guests about room cleanliness—all prebuilt and ready to customize.

The power of follow-up questions

Follow-up questions are crucial for getting clarity and context from guest feedback, especially when responses are vague or open to interpretation. Automated AI followup questions—like those Specific uses—act as a “smart interviewer,” probing naturally to understand “why” behind a choice, filling gaps, or clarifying ambiguous remarks in real time. This makes the experience conversational, capturing richer insights, not just polite ratings.

• Hotel guest: “The room was fine, but something seemed off.”

• AI follow-up: “Thanks for sharing! Could you describe what felt off—was it an odor, dust, or something else?”

How many followups to ask? Aim for 2–3 thoughtful follow-up questions per main topic. Specific lets you choose an automatic cutoff when the guest has already provided what you need—keeping it natural, not interrogative.

This makes it a conversational survey: Each response flows naturally to deeper understanding, so the feedback feels more like a chat than a checklist.

AI analysis of followup responses: Even when there’s lots of unstructured text, it’s easy to analyze followup responses using AI. AI sifts through all the different guest stories and finds common threads, pain points, or unique delights.

Try generating your own survey—these smart, dynamic follow-ups are a game-changer for guest feedback.

How to prompt an AI for great hotel guest room cleanliness questions

If you want to brainstorm or expand your own survey, prompt tools like ChatGPT with specifics for your audience and goals. Start simple:

Ask for open-ended ideas:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for hotel guest survey about room cleanliness.

But for even better results, share your context—who you are, your priorities, unique challenges:

We run a boutique hotel and want to improve our guests’ perception of cleanliness. Suggest 10 open-ended questions that encourage detailed feedback about room hygiene, visible areas, and subtle comfort factors.

Next, organize your ideas for clarity:

Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.

Then, focus in on what matters most:

Generate 10 questions for categories Bathroom hygiene, Bedding cleanliness, and Cleaning staff responsiveness.

What is a conversational survey?

Conversational surveys are interactive feedback experiences where questions and follow-ups unfold like a genuine chat—not a stale form. The AI asks questions, listens, and adapts, ensuring the guest feels heard and you get richer insights. It adapts follow-up probes on-the-fly, making guests comfortable and drastically improving response quality.

Why use AI for hotel guest surveys? The old way of building forms is slow, static, and rarely produces high engagement—especially for topics like cleanliness, where details matter and every guest’s perspective is unique. AI-generated surveys—especially those from Specific—deliver far richer insights and smooth guest experiences. With a single conversational link, you’ll gather deeper feedback and save your operations team hours in follow-up emails and response analysis.

Want to see just how easy it is? Check out our resource on how to create a hotel guest room cleanliness survey for a full walkthrough.

See this room cleanliness survey example now

Curious how much insight you could unlock in just a few minutes? See a hotel guest room cleanliness survey example and start building your own engaging, conversational feedback experience—powered by smart follow-ups and instant AI analysis—with Specific.