 BE A PART OF THE CONVERSATION |
The age of the customer comment card has passed.Today, hotel guests have the endless expanse of the Internet on which to write their rants and raves about properties around the world.
The playing field has been leveled for everyone, from the ubiquitous brand giants to the smallest independents, as they each battle the same monster: online customer reviews and their effects.
Every minute of any given day, reviews are posted to travel forums, third-party booking sites, blogs and social networking hotspots. They detail the ups and downs of stays and can range from flowery to ruthless.
And there is a good chance they'll be read.
 How to fight back |
According to TravelClick, a provider of hotel e-marketing solutions, potential hotel guests will visit three to four websites before booking a room.
A survey conducted in March of 2,559 adults, co-authored by Ypartnership and PhoCusWright, shows that nearly four in 10 people reported being influenced by personal comments read on social networking or travel advisory sites, while one-third of those surveyed has posted a travel review online.
As a result, many hoteliers not only have recognized the fast-growing trend, but have put protocols in place to monitor what's being said online and do something about it.
Pay attention
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"It's surprising what people will actually write," said Jami Timmons, director of product management-market intelligence at TravelClick. And whether the comments are about a personal memory or criticism of a specific front-desk clerk, those posts, in most cases, aren't going anywhere.
"It's not like in the day of comment cards when you get to choose whether you acknowledge what's been said," Timmons said.
TravelClick works with companies to enhance their Web presence and has 50,000 clients under its market intelligence platform.
 LeGrand Luxe Worldwide |
One of the offerings is a program called SearchView, which allows hotels to see how their properties are being viewed on the Internet from the consumer's standpoint.
Reports produced by SearchView show the results found when using a search engine to find a hotel, where that property falls in returns on queries through online travel agents, whether ratings differ from site to site and how competitors are faring.
 Burkard Vantage |
While vendors like TravelClick are available to provide monitoring services, some brands, like The Lexington Collection by Vantage Hospitality, do the majority of such work in-house.
John Burkard, VP of information technology at Vantage, said the brand tracks each mention of its hotels on everything from travel sites to blogs so it can be clued in early when comments hit the Internet.
