The importance of online reviews is growing in the hospitality industry. Hoteliers can no longer ignore the role of online reputation management in building their brand image, widening their customer base, and directly impacting revenues.
Consider these statistics:
- Customers trust reviews by other travellers more than official business communication (PwC)
- 97.7% of customers read online reviews before planning trips and booking hotels (TripAdvisor)
- Given equal prices, travellers are 3.9 times more likely to choose a hotel with higher review scores, and 76% are willing to pay more for higher-rated hotels (TrustYou)
Even a marginal improvement in your review score will increase the saleability of your hotel manifold.
How to Use Hotel Reviews to Your Advantage
Monitor Your Social Media Platforms Closely
The relationship with your guest does not end with their stay. Guests are likely to share their experiences online. Keep a daily watch on your social media accounts to track reviews posted about your hotel.
Respond to Every Review
Whether the review is positive or negative, make sure to respond promptly. A simple "thank you" for a favourable response makes guests feel acknowledged and earns loyalty. Negative reviews need the most attention — go the extra mile to redeem your brand image. When other travellers read the negative review alongside your thoughtful response, its effect is either minimised or neutralised.
Market the Reviews
Whenever you receive testimonials from customers, publicise them on your website and social media pages. These testimonials act as personal recommendations and build credibility among prospective guests.
Deploy Technology to Understand Guest Sentiment
It can be challenging to visit every social media platform to monitor reviews. Guest intelligence tools can help you manage your online reputation in just a few clicks. Some tools offer semantic analysis through which you can measure guest sentiment and understand which service departments guests find attractive and which need improvement.
How DJUBO Can Help
DJUBO offers a powerful guest intelligence tool — Reputation and Review Management — which brings all online review sources for your hotel onto a single dashboard:
- Semantic analysis: Uses Big Data, Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to analyse both quantitative (ratings) and qualitative data (reviews). It reads and comprehends nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs to determine sentiment intensity
- Daily review reports: Single-window review aggregation and response, allowing you to respond faster to guest reviews
- 100+ sources monitored: Goes beyond TripAdvisor to track OTAs and other platforms, so you can study trends over time
- 60+ service categories: Reviews are categorised into topics so you can drill down into specific issues rather than just reading headlines
- Competitor benchmarking: Displays your hotel's ratings against competitors for any time range, helping you strategically outrank them
Your hotel reviews matter a great deal in increasing your revenues. Don't ignore them — leverage them with the right tools and strategy.
