Guest Post - Travel 2.0 and what it means for Hotels

Roshan McPartland, Operations manager at BookAssist (a leading hospitality booking engine provider in Ireland and on-line marketing partner) has sent me a very interesting article that he put together recently. I thought that I should share this with you as a
"Guest Post".

 

For those of you old enough to remember booking a hotel in Ireland in the late 80’s early 90’s - it was relatively straight forward in that you either booked the hotel over the phone or perhaps by fax. In most cases you knew about the hotel, had stayed there before or a friend may have recommended it to you. However booking a hotel abroad during this time was slightly more complex, especially if you knew nothing about it. There was definitely and element of walking into the unknown and the only comfort you had was knowing that the hotel you booked had a 4 star rating from the national tourist board, and if you were lucky enough there was one picture of the hotel in the brochure.

Thanks to Travel 2.0, booking a hotel is now different. Travel 2.0 means that we as consumers have more information about hotels readily available at our fingertips. We can now go directly to travel portal sites or even better, go direct to the hotels own website to look for the information that we require. However, Travel 2.0 is not just about getting this information, but rather about getting impartial information from others. When it comes to booking a holiday or hotel online, we as bookers prefer to hear about other people’s stories and experiences. Consumers are now making decisions about where to stay based on other people’s recommendations. In fact when it comes to the hotel industry, perhaps more so than any other industry - word of mouth online is king.

In a recent Yahoo Travel survey (2007), the results revealed ’that 61% of those questioned now go online for vacation recommendations. Travellers are no longer just searching for a hotel based on price, they are now mainly looking for user reviews, user ratings and photos.’

Price remains a primary and vital factor when choosing a hotel, but with Travel 2.0 it is also possible to highlight the hotel experiences in addition to the price – and some hotels do not capitilase on this opportunity. Consumers are not interested in the corporate blurb that you sometimes find on hotel websites, they simply don’t care if ‘each guest room contains beautiful antique furnishings and exquisite fabrics which will indulge your senses’. Consumers of today want to hear real accounts from real people that have stayed there as well as reading something that was written by a real person.

Travel 2.0 Revolution

In simple terms, this is what the Travel 2.0 revolution is all about. Its about you, your friends, your neighbours, your colleagues and other people who love to travel and their conversations online about the places they have stayed and their personal opinions of them. It’s about these people sharing their photos, videos, stories, memories and reviews online through social networking, video and reviews sites such as Tripadvisor, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr.com.

So now that we know what these modern day consumers are doing, shouldn’t we join in with them? For hotels, the answer is yes. If these consumers are spending more time online then hotels must find ways to reach out to them by joining in on their conversations whether its through responding to positive and negative reviews posted on Tripadvisor, creating a corporate facebook site or perhaps adding a video hotel tour on Youtube.com or even adding images of the hotel on Flickr.com.

Before joining in on this online conversation, you must first begin by listening to them and as this is more important than talking. There are a few online tools you can use to monitor what people are saying about your property online, such as google blog search, google alerts and technorati alerts. Once you know what they’re saying about you, then you can start talking to them.

Tips to join in on the online conversation.

1) Create a blog page and link it to your website. Invite people to leave reviews and share their stories and experiences with other potential bookers.

2) Post your corporate video on Youtube.com in addition to adding the video to your own website.

3) Add images of your property to Flickr.com (a site for sharing photos online)

4) Respond to both positive and negative reviews on Tripadvisor.

5)  Create a corporate Facebook.com site. (a social community site)

6) Add podcasts to your site. With podcasts hotels can then provide information about the hotel, the location or events taking place in the location. They can even be created for different segments or age profiles of your guests. (A Podcast is a digital media file which can be downloaded to your guests Ipod or MP3 Player)

Post written by Roshan McPartland, Operations manager at BookAssist

Comments

[Ralf VonSosen]

I strongly agree with your comments about the Travel 2.0 concept. The social network and empowerment of the consumer (traveler) is a big part of the '2.0'. I would like to add that the '2.0' concept goes beyond that concept however and also encompasses the personalized web shopping experience, avaialbility to multiple shopping channels, targeted offers to the long-tail traveler, as well as analytical and mash-up tools for the vacation provider.
I have put an eBook togehter based on this concept - Vacation Rental 2.0. It is specific to vacation home rentals, but the concepts are very applicable to the Travel 2.0 concept.
A free copy is available at www.LiveRez.com.

[Claude]

yes, interesting tips and advices.

You forgot to mention that you need time to handle conversation in your blog, time to monitor interaction on Facebook and other....
time to handle the conversation....

We all know the hotel industry business....Who will handle that stuff in a hotel like 3 to 4 stars with 50 rooms...even in hotel chain they are out of the game...

If you just create news pages on Travel 2.0 supports, that doesn't work well !

Positive way, they are a need for advices and consulting

Negative way, hotel don't want to pay for something they think it's "wind" or even "hoax" consulting ;-)

GOD, hotelier never change, since 1994 (first start job in hotel chain) I saw the same reaction from them.

[Albert Barra]

Interesting post, and I agree in the definitions. However I can not agree with some of the given tips.

I don't think that loading a Corporate Video on Youtube or uploading Hotel pictures on Flickr are some ways of joinning the conversation, but just starting new conversations from a corporate perspective and somehow doing some Spam.

We must be some careful about it. If unsolicited emails are considered as Spam even if they could be relevant for the recipients, unsolicited content should, under some user's point of view, be considered spam too.

Regards,
Albert Barra

[Guillaume]

Thanks for your comments.

@Ralf - I will look at your article for sure.

@Claude - I agree with you that hoteliers haven't much time to deal with comments / interactivity and so forth. Unless management change habits with certain positions. For example, frontdesk people are not busy all the time. Could it be that one individual could spend 30min a day checking and respond to social networking sites. And do this on a rota basis?

@Albert - we missed each other in London, didn't we? About your comment. Does you mean that YouTube and Flickr are the reserved(exclusively?) places to amateurs like me who shot videos of hotel rooms and not the place for hoteliers to upload their official media content?

[Roshan McPartland]

Hi All,

Thanks for all the responses. Its certainly an interesting topic and a topic that will always have different views.

I appreciate that not all hotels may have the time to create and maintain a blog, facebook account etc etc, however, they do need to consider it and try and make time for it or at very least partner with a company who can help them.

The reason for this is simple. We are a society driven by technology. The future guests of tomorrow (teenagers) are spending most of their time online. They are abandoning email in favour of sites such as facebook and Twitter. Email is now too slow for them.

(http://www.slate.com/id/2177969/pagenum/all)

So, if these are the "future guests" of tomorrow and they are spending their time online, shouldn't hotels be joining them?

There is no doubting the importance of Travel 2.0. By engaging in Travel 2.0 you not only creating a blog or facebook account but you are creating a corporate personality for your hotel online and this is something that a simple website with a nice design can not achieve.

In Ireland Hotel Blogs haven't quite taken off but there are some positive signs that it's beginning to. Hotels here in Ireland are beginning to realise that by creating and maintaining a blog you can communicate with your guest albeit through a different form.

One example of a client is of a hotel in County Kerry called the Killarney Court Hotel. (http://www.killarneycourthotel.com/blog). They have made the time to for their blog and they will hopefully see the benefits from it. Not only have they created their blog but now they have created their online personality.

Another client (a 30 bed Guesthouse) had added their online video on youtube.com. If you go to youtube and type "hotels in Dublin" you will find Chareville lodge Guesthouse Dublin in 2nd position. It has had 1811 views within 4 weeks. Positive comments have also been left by past guests. Their video may have also resulted in a few bookings too!

In bookassist we are now helping our clients create their own blog & facebook account as well as load images and video online, so they don't have to worry about not having the time.

And on a final point for any hotels considering the above, just think about the fun you can have creating a blog or facebook account (and in while your in work too!)

K. Regards

Roshan