Hotel’s online reputation can be used as marketing and as indicator of their performance. For this reason, effective online reputation management will lead a hotel to a success with increased revenue.
As the popularity of social media bursts among every generation all around the world, the hotel industry has become aware of the importance of managing online reputation. In fact, there are hardly other industries that are so sensitive to the opinions and experiences shared online by customers and that are so affected by them as the hospitality industry. However, in other words, if hotels understand the importance of the online reputation and handle it in a correct way, it will be one of the most relevant tools of management for them.
the hotel factory has extensive experience in the realization of increasing the online reputation of 4-star and 5-star hotels, boutique, and youth hostels developing the following strategies:
- Diagnostic of the current situation of the hotel or/and the hotel chain.
- Internal interviews, mystery guests, and analysis of the internal documentation and the platform of the online reputation.
- Benchmark
- Identifying the referents of the sector, adapted to the characteristics of the hotel and benchmark of the best practices.
- Visits to the destination and the identifies hotels with the clients.
- Development of key findings of the trip to be applied to the hotels of the clients for the improvement of the guest satisfaction and online reputation.
- Implementation plan and pilot test in one of the hotels.
- Detailed action plan, metas, deadlines, and resources needed.
On this post I would like to discuss why it is important for hotels to consider the online reputation to drive revenue.
First, a hotel’s online reputation can be used as marketing tool to attracting customers and build relationships with them. Nowadays checking online reviews on TripAdvisor, Google, and other online travel agencies (OTA’s) is a step taken by the majority of travelers when planning a trip to compare between various options that are available in a market since they cannot “try” the product before it is purchased as they would do with clothes or other materials. According to TripAdvisor, the rate of people using online reviews reaches 93%. They look for social proof, or a guidance from their peers, to make decisions regarding their holidays, and as a consequence, hotels with small number of reviews tend to be less attractive for travelers. Furthermore, 53% of the people surveyed by TripAdvisor stated that they would not book a hotel that did not have any online reviews. It is also important to mention that user generated content (UGC) such as comments and pictures made by peers, not by professionals nor direction of a hotel, are often more trusted by customers than paid advertising.
Secondly, a hotel can take advantage of online reputation as an operational tool setting it as an indicator of their performance since it allows a hotel to measure and monitor guest satisfactions and its improvement. For example, establish an objective or ranking to be accomplished in a certain period of time, identify strategies and how the goal will be achieved, implement actions and analyse if it’s working and making a difference on the online reputation. Also, online reviews are valuable resources for hotel managers to recognise the results of their work from the point of the view of the customers, since there often are differences between where they see the critical issues in the operations.
With that being said, effective online reputation management will lead a hotel to a success with increased revenue. The famous study conducted by Cornell suggests that a 1 point increase in Global Review Index (GRI) of ReviewPro positively affects the Average Daily Rate (ADR) by 0.89%, Occupancy Rate by 0.54%, and Revenue per Available Room (RevPAR) b 1.42%. It can be said that managing online reputation is not an option anymore, but a top investment priority that every hotel has to practice.
the hotel factory has extensive experience in carrying out projects to improve the online reputation of 4 *, 5 *, boutique and youth hostels. If you want to know more information about the importance of online reputation, our strategic plan to improve online reputation and actions that can be developed to improve the overall score of your hotels, please contact us and ask for advice.
