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As consumers moved away from using professional advisors towards organizing
travel for themselves, understanding whether a product was the right match for
their particular needs became increasingly difficult.
Without the benefit of a travel agent's knowledge and experience,
how could the consumer be sure that the hotel that they were looking at
was of good quality, safe, and would be a good match for their expectations?
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It's one thing to look at the textual descriptions and photographic content
shown on the website, but could they trust that the reality would match that promise?
This need for unbiased, reliable information about quality,
was one of the drivers behind the development of user review sites.
The most famous of which within travel, is probably tripadvisor.com.
On such sites, travelers can leave textual reviews,
post candid photos of their experience in hotels and other travel businesses.
As well as quantitatively rate the business
on a large number of different factors.
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These ratings and reviews are then consulted by other travelers considering
staying in that particular property.
In order to get an honest, warts and
all assessment of what it is really like once the sales hype has been removed.
As independent travel has grown, review sites have blossomed
playing a critical role in the travel shopping process.
As they are so powerful in terms of conversion, the majority of the OTA's
build some form or other of user reviews into their online shopping experience.
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Since consumers perceive these scores to be unbiased,
they can be highly influential in determining whether the hotel
actually closes its sale, and thus, they need to be actively managed.
Other OTAs, most notable booking.com and Expedia maintain their own
user review systems with the added advantage that only real people who
have actually booked through the system in question can actually post a review.
In direct contrast to independent systems such as TripAdvisor,
where anyone can post reviews.
A feature that some claim leaves the latter open to manipulation by
unscrupulous hoteliers, trying to boost their own scores,
a rubbish the competition.
OTAs on the other hand, collect their reviews by soliciting feedback from
actual customers, once they've checked out of the property.
Thus, ensuring that the guest has actually stayed in the property in question.
And that the feedback is based on real experiences.
Perhaps this helps explain why travel reviews on OTA websites have overtaken
generic travel review websites as the most influential feature in travel planning.
According to a recent study by Phocuswright.
Because of this,
OTAs are increasingly stressing user reviews in their search results listings.
Giving prominence to both the review score and the quantity of reviews,
allowing users to sort by popularity with past customers.
Hotels can capitalize on this by insuring that satisfied customers leave reviews,
by, for example, requesting them to do so during the check-out process.
Thus, increasing review volume from satisfied customers.
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Unfortunately, manipulating the review score is difficult, and
hotels need to take a long term approach to maximizing this very important metric.
First of all, they should ensure that the product and service provided
matches customer expectations to avoid disappointment and frustration.
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Furthermore, they should try to deal with any customer service issues before
the customer checks out, in order to ensure that departing guests are happy and
thus, likely to leave positive feedback.
Reviews can also be used as a source of intelligence about what's working and
what's not working within the hotel property.
If the same issues come up again and again and again,
then priority should be given to finding solutions to these problems,
which will ultimately result in happier customers.
And thus, better review scores in the long term.
Unfortunately, there are no quick fixes.
And ensuring that you consistently have positive review scores is a lot of work.
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But the benefits can be staggering.
A recent study carried out by reputation management system,
TrustYou, found that given equal prices, travelers are nearly four
times more likely to choose a hotel with higher review scores.
Even when prices are different, travelers are more likely to book
the hotel with the higher score despite the higher room rates.
And when asked, over three-quarters of travelers were willing to pay more for
a hotel with higher review scores.
In other words, your review score is definitely one of the key factors that
will determine whether you get booked or not.
And thus, is something that warrants
your attention if you wanna get your fair
share of business through OTA channels.
Peter O'ConnorProfessor of information systems, Director of the MBA in Hospitality Management
Nicolas GrafProfesseur
