UPDATE:
Tnooz-TripAdvisor webinar: VIDEO for Reputation management and beyond – webinar on which these article was based.
NB: This is a guest article by Brian Payea, head of industry relations at TripAdvisor.
In a previous article on Tnooz, I mentioned that the vast majority of travelers have a better overall impression of hospitality businesses when they engage with the traveler community and show they are taking their comments to heart.
I also noted that travelers give owners and managers a lot of credit for offering courteous and thoughtful responses to traveler reviews.
Research by TripAdvisor and others continues to give strength to these assertions and underscores the importance of effective reputation management.
A commissioned survey of more than 2,100 travelers conducted by Forrester on behalf of TripAdvisor reveals some very compelling findings, chief among them that travelers find user-generated reviews important when making booking decisions, and also that the presence and tone of management responses have a significant impact on their impression of lodging businesses.
The following are a few questions lodging owners and managers often ask me when I’m attending speaking events or hosting TripAdvisor master classes. The data provide the answers.
How important are traveler reviews?
According to the survey, 81% of travelers find user reviews important when determining which hotel to stay at during their trip.
For perspective, while a few said they weren’t swayed either way, only 3% of travelers said they don’t find user reviews important when determining which hotel to book. What’s even more compelling is that nearly half (49%) of travelers surveyed won’t book a property unless it has reviews.
Why do travelers write reviews?
The number one reason travelers cite for writing a hotel review is to “share a good experience with other travelers.”
This is consistent with TripAdvisor’s own findings: the average rating on TripAdvisor is positive (four on a scale from one to five).
Should I post management responses?
The travelers surveyed are very clear on this point, as 71% said that seeing a management response to reviews by an official hotel representative is important to them.
Still not convinced? Sixty-eight percent of travelers said that it they were considering two comparable properties, the presence of management responses on one would sway them in its favor.
Should I respond to both negative and positive reviews?
According to the survey, lodging businesses benefit from responding to both positive and negative reviews.
Of those surveyed, 79% of travelers said a good management response to a bad review reassures them, and 78% said a good management response to a good review makes them think highly of the hotel.
But, be mindful of your tone – 60% of travelers said an aggressive management response to a bad review makes the hotel look worse. These findings are compelling and good to keep in mind when monitoring traveler reviews and posting management responses.
The key takeaway from the survey is that if you’re not engaging with the online traveler community and effectively managing your online reputation, your competition might just be the one benefitting, especially if your competitor is posting thoughtful management responses and taking traveler feedback to heart.
NB: This is a guest article by Brian Payea, head of industry relations at TripAdvisor.
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One of the main problems with current generation thinking on on line reputation management is the amount of gismos and electronic tools we use to measure it and act on it.
There is no substitute for each hotel property having its own on the ground reputation management strategy, supplemented by its on on line guest reviews where it can regulate to some extent the content it wants to measure. An essential part of this is an efficient human interface between hotel and guest, this is customer service after all, and it doesn’t lend itself to electronic led measurement. It can be emotional. Even a telephone conversation is far more personal than a faceless email.
I think we are going up a cul de sac on this. A recent post somewhere which said that linguistic techniques could be used to suss out fake reviews, this rather made me laugh. Could they use similar techniques to catch criminals, gangs, looters and spammers, do you think – very topical regrettably in England these days (but oddly enough not in Scotland).
Robert – I agree with your take on on-the-ground reputation management. It’s critical, and it’s where Joie de Vivre really excelled with its customer focus.
On the fake review analysis, that is actually a student engineering project at Cornell, so take it with that in mind. Interesting, but certainly not perfect.
However, that’s also an extension of the broader social media “listening”, sentiment analysis, and other aspects of social media intelligence / monitoring, which is pretty cool, though also still imperfect.
The interesting thing about the webinar yesterday and Brian’s article today is the clear and critical focus on the hotel-specific vertical and individual hotel reviews.
Also relevant, but a somewhat broader topic, are the brand and chain level reputation management needs, and that’s where the broader social media monitoring services come in as well.
Revinate and ReviewPro incorporate some of it, I believe, but it’s a pretty hot space right now. Salesforce acquired Radian6, Nielsen and McKinsey joined forces on it, and Adobe acquired Omniture and created a similar service to package with web analytics.
None of it can replace the human interaction you highlight, but unless the guest brings it to the hotel’s attention in person, the other way for hotels to capture that complaint or negative sentiment is via these review sites and monitoring tools, so it seems they all just need to complement each other.
This is a very short, sweet and concise overview of the “travel reviews” part of hotels online presence.
I wonder how many hotels manage their online reputation as responsively as their internal operations? I would nowadays expect a steady stream of communication maintained with clients and partners not only on TripAdvisor but also on the social platforms. Taking part in online discussions related to the hotel should be considered mandatory, just like welcoming guests when they enter a hotel or responding to their telephone enquiries.
Great stats in this article thanks! Hotels are definitely an industry that should closely monitor their Online Reputation. Reviews written by recent travelers and guests can sway a possible guest from booking or not booking.
And we agree having Management respond to any negative reviews will help the hotels online reputation and shows that the hotel cares about what their guests experience was like.
Wonderful points by blogger and commenters. I certainly see a huge gap in online reputation management as companies continue to develop software to put in the hands of untrained, social media novices. Partnering solid software with the right real time monitoring service with proven hospitality management expertise is the way to go. That is why we exist at PipelineSMS.
As a san francisco vacation guro i also look onto hotel sites reviews their online reputation any comments from the customers for i value the importance of my clients satisfactory and contentment of the hotel they are staying before i suggest or booked them up. Online reputation should be thoroughly checked for they are the one who would assist you or the customers need all through out your stay on a certain hotel good impression last.