The reputation management of your independent hotel is a fundamental tenet of your online success.
NB: This is an article from Aro Digital
Your hotel’s online reputation plays an important role in distinguishing how your hotel performs against the competition and also in direct bookings.
It involves monitoring and influencing the way your hotel is perceived on the web. This includes:
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- Keeping track of review sites: monitoring TripAdvisor and Google My Business reviews of your hotel, replying as appropriate and asking your guests to post online their satisfaction with their stay at your property.
- Posting and engaging on social media: Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are great channels for hotels.
- Adding accurate business listings with quality photos
Online reviews are a huge influence on browsers booking decisions.
As this article references, 38% of bookers said that positive reviews are an incentive to stay at independent hotels.
Moreover a paper from Cornell University found that increasing the average review score by 1 point on a 5 point scale (e.g. 3.5 to 4.5) allowed hotels to raise their rate by 11% while maintaining the same occupancy.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU HAVE NO OR POOR REVIEWS?
Reviews offer an insight into what others have experienced and what they recommend. Potential guests are looking for a great experience.
Although they may enjoy trying something new and unknown, they still will feel unsure about making a booking at your property if there is no indication from previous guests of their experience in your hotel.
A lack of reviews will be as damaging for your brand and reputation just as much as bad reviews – it fosters a sense of mistrust.
Hotel bookers are becoming more savvy and know what to look for when it comes to hotel review sites.
How you reply to or deal with poor reviews reveals a lot about the service in your hotel and the tone of voice used forms part of your brand management.
93% of people use online reviews when they are planning to say at a hotel.
Why?
Because they provide social proof which is one of the most powerful psychological factors in human decision making.
When faced with difficult or a large number of choices, people will shortcut the decision process by looking at what others similar to them did and doing the same.
