Consumers find trust in hotel websites over other sources

 

Digital agency Fuel has released its annual research on how leisure travellers are researching and booking hotels.

The agency, which specialises in marketing for hotels, says it has compiled the results of the Leisure Travel Planning Study with the help of 2,900 respondents, so a decent sample.

Lots of interesting facts and figures around who is booking, who is on the trip and when the planning takes place to help hotels target potential customers.

It also picks up on some interesting trends around how many sites consumers visit – it’s not the more than 20 sites often cited from Google research.

According to Fuel, it’s 10 or fewer, but on average between four and six.

There’s also some interesting findings on the importance of reviews revealing that more than 80% will not book a hotel without consulting reviews and that they trust reviews on the hotel’s own website over TripAdvisor and Yelp.

And, when it comes to making the decision, consumers say reviews on the hotel site, pictures on the hotel website and quality of hotel website are more important and influential than reviews sites.

Some may find this surprising but Fuel points out that respondents could have rated other sources including TripAdvisor, destination sites and search engines above the websites of the hotels.

Read rest of the article at: Tnooz