Hotel Blogs - When Hotel Marketing gets Social

The Art of Questioning for Hoteliers

Online reviews have changed dramatically how we should look after our customers in our respective businesses. More so with accommodation or restaurants because they are playing a major factor in the decision making process of consumers.

So how to prevent a customer to walk away with a bad taste in his mouth and leave a negative review about your business? By making sure you talk to them before he leaves your property.

We need to learn the Art of Questioning when a customer checks out at the reception. Which is to ask these basic questions:

 

“Did you have a pleasant stay with us?”

“Could you share with us what went wrong in your stay with us?”

“Would you stay again with us?”

“Would you recommend your hotel to your friends/colleagues?”

“At our hotel we try to improve our product every day, could you highlight to us things that we didn’t do well during your stay?”

 

I can tell you very, very few hotels / property owners dare to ask these questions. My last recent check out at a hotel in France was simple and quick but at no time the receptionist asked me whether I had a nice stay. Probably because he’s never been trained to do so.

Make sure that you train your team to ask the right questions and that they report to you accordingly. Bad feedback is good feedback.

It’s all about improving your product delivery and meets or exceeds customers expectations.

Last but not least, if you ask these questions to your customer face to face, there is a good chance that he or she will leave a more positive review and thinks that you care about them. Remember. Them. Not you.

Reviews are back with Hotelicopter! Any good?

Hotelicopter (ex VibeAgent) has released back guest reviews on their website with a mash up with Facebook. If you have submitted reviews to VibeAgent before, these are finally available to your peers who connect with you via Facebook.

Hotelicopter management team believes that consumers would rather read reviews from their friends, colleagues, family than browsing hundreds of reviews from strangers.

So how it works?

Step 1: You go to Hotelicopter website
Step 2: You sign in with your Facebook credentials.
Step 3: You can read reviews from your Facebook contacts and also see yours on a separate tab

Easy. But not that useful to me.

What about if my friends don't have any hotels reviewed in a destination I am planning to go?

Where is the search box if I want to find reviews at the Marriott hotel in Paris?

What about if I don't use Facebook? (believe me, some of my friends don't have an account yet)

What about if my network on Facebook is so limited (because I want to restrict it) that I don't really get enough reviews content from my friends? (the example below if revealing)

To get more content, does that mean Hotelicopter would also have to develop a mash up with other social networking sites like LinkedIN, Bebo, FriendReunited...?

HRS discovers hotel reviews (bless them!)

Whist reading e-tid, I have read that HRS have discovered the importance of hotel reviews to boost sales. Well, it's about time! Venere, Booking.com, TripAdvisor have understood this a long time ago.

One of HRS board member Michael Simon reveals ‘After the price, the rating is the most important decision-making criteria for choosing a hotel – this means that excellent ratings boost sales.’ WOW!! Really? Thanks for that. It looks like HRS is catching up with its direct competitors.

Also I am still puzzled about why the German online hotel specialist still shouts about having 230,000 hotels. I have always had doubt about this number and think some hotels are duplicate. But I might be wrong. There is no way we can check this out as a consumer while visiting their website.

As a comparison, on a date in August, HRS features 350 hotels while Booking.com has more than 600 hotels available...

When consumer reviews can be risque on TravelPost (Updated)

You've probably read in these pages the re-launch of TravelPost by Kayak when they realized last year there was something to do with it to make it as an alternative to TripAdvisor.

Some people find the site useful and better structured than its direct competitor and others can't be bothered.

Whilst trying to find what people are saying about the re branded Pullman Hotel in Paris, this is what I could find on TravelPost (). The story doesn't say where this number leads to. I couldn't  find it whether it was attached to an existing hotel unfortunately.

Update: Kayak contacted me after this post and removed the 2 pictures you can see on the screen shot below. They also said "At Kayak/TravelPost, we have a general policy of not editing or censoring user content as it relates to a bona-fide hotel review.  In the cases you pointed out, these were obviously not serious hotel reviews (eg: the play on "Paris Hilton") and have been marked for removal."

The Hotel Show S2E04 (response to Travel-Rants.com)

I have read a really good post from Darren at Travel-Rants.com here and this is my video comment on the subject "Holidaymakers do not trust user generated content". The post on Darren's blog has driven a very interesting conversation from different people. This is my 2 pence...

Hotel Show S2E04
Uploaded by HotelBlogs

Vinivi has a new look!

One of the new entrants I have mentionned a few time on these pages - Vinivi -  has make some changes on its website. The homepage is very simple and has a centered "Search" functionality and summarizes the content uploaded so far.

30937 hotels  and guest houses

23349 maps

61754 photos

1877 videos (using YouTube or Dailymotion)

This is really a new strategy change. Vinivi is becoming more Community centric and more destinations focused.

In terms of revenue, Vinivi has made some partnerships with Booking.com and Accor.

The team has grown to 13 people now. See their profiles here.

Gilles, if you fancy an interview in London, let me know.

FreshTV aims to be the YouTube in Travel

Travolution yesterday announced the launch of FreshTV, the first online TV channel where travellers talk about their latest holiday experience. FreshTV is in partnership with FreshHolidays, property of the On Holiday Group owned and managed by Steve Endacott. For the moment, 25 videos have been posted. Travellers report back about their apartment in Martinique or their hotel in Magaluff. What's different from what I have seen before is that people are filming themselves talking about their holidays rather than showing the property or the resort they stayed in.

As Kevin May from Travolution rightly said, I challenge this new web 2.0 initiative to see people giving a negative comment about their stay face to face on the camera. The reason why TripAdvisor is so popular with the good and bad reviews is because people are just writing words and it's very hard to put a face to their past customers from a hotel point of view (unless they have mentionned their lastname and date where they have stayed in the hotel).

Something interesting is that travellers who posted a video get incentivised. Please tell me more...How much? Does that mean I get a night free at the hotel?

As mentionned before on HB, I have put together my different hotel videos from my trip in Oman and Dubai and this work is very much time consuming. Why?

This is a scenario for a 6 minutes movie.

1. Transfer the movie into the computer = 10 minutes
2. Edit / Cut / Paste / Add music / Remove useless native sound = 20 minutes
3. Convert the avi file into a lighter file (because site like YouTuve only allow 100MB per movie) = 5 minutes
4. Upload the movie in YouTube, Dailymotion: depends on your connection but recently I have experienced a 30 min transfer for a 70 MB movie

Total: nearly 1 hour.

So I am very pleased to hear that for a change a travel company is going to give me a bit of money for my hard work...Can I get more if the video is exclusively distributed on FreshTV?

That's the other thing...there is new market in online video distribution. To get a good coverage, you need to upload your video in :

YouTube, Dailymotion, TripAdvisor, Vinivi, VibeAgent and now FreshTV...

I am looking forward to hearing more from that project.

Steve introduce the concept on this video.

Technorati Tags: freshtv, fresh tv, on holiday group, fresh holidays, steve endacott

Is it clean? I'd like to know before I get there.

You'd like to think that any hotel rated with even one star has at least passed the basic clean test. By that I mean that the linens were changed since the last guest, the bathroom has been cleaned and the towels are fresh. Beyond that, I would like to think that the higher the rating, the cleaner the hotel. But that is not always the case.

Elizabeth's Experience in Dallas

A 24-year-old friend of mine booked a hotel through a popular online low-fare travel site. The hotel had 2 stars and was inexpensive (about $71). Upon arrival, she found her room to be dirty, still not cleaned from previous guests. She asked the desk clerk for a different room. No problem, the clerk said. But Elizabeth's second room was even worse. Her room had not seen a thorough cleaning in months and certainly not even a cursory cleaning since the last guest. The bathroom harbored countless health issues starting with vomit on the toilet and floor. The tub had mold and was quite stained. Countertop was dirty. Dresser was sticky. The bedspread hid the visibly used linen beneath. Her list of filth went on and on, supported by digital photos that she took before leaving.

Two Hotel Bills for the Same Trip

Elizabeth could not stay there another minute. She checked into another hotel. But now she had two hotel bills for each night of the trip. She has been unsuccessful in contacting the booking site. She is now disputing the payment through her credit card company.

How Can Inexperienced Travelers Avoid a Hotel Nightmare?

• Visit the Hotel's Own Website. A start, but not always reliable. Elizabeth did check the hotel's site. It sounded just okay. The pictures were mostly of the Dallas skyline.
• Look at Prevailing Room Rates on the Hotel's Site. How do rates compare to the discount site? This hotel listed its regular rates quite a bit higher, giving the impression it was a more deluxe hotel.
• Hotel Description Might Be a Clue. This hotel's description focused on its close proximity to a convention center and hundreds of restaurants but not on its own amenities. Like the photos, the description was vague. And, upon arrival, Elizabeth found the neighborhood was indeed close to  the convention center, but in a very rundown area with vagrants milling about.
• Don'tt Go By an Impressive Name. Don't make the mistake of associating a luxurious-sounding name with quality. Ritz, plaza and other similar copycat names are just putting on the ritz!
• Check Reviews. Don't skip this step. Read all customer reviews provided on the travel site. Reviews were mixed for this hotel, most not good. But Elizabeth never read them before booking.
• Check TripAdvisor.com. This site offers forums on various cities. Tap into the city forum you need, search for hotel opinions. Or ask your own questions and someone will answer. It is a very active forum and my experience with recommendations there has been positive.
• How to Get a Refund. Internet commentary seems to say that it is very difficult to get online travel sites to respond. Elizabeth can dispute the charge through her credit card company. Beyond that, she can check with the hotel itself, even though she purchased through an online service. With the complaints she had about this hotel (accompanied by her photos), she can contact the Board of Health, Convention Bureau, Better Business Bureau and the Chamber of Commerce. She can also share her experience on TripAdvisor.com and other similar travel sites that accept comments.
• Do Your Homework Before You Book. Traveling on a tight budget doesn’t mean you have to give up basic cleanliness. But choosing a 1 or 2 star hotel may require closer scrutiny.
• Don't Count on Stars. Three major online discount sites rated this hotel with 1 or 2 stars. Only one major site did not list this hotel. Doesn't anybody check on the hotels they sell to unwary travelers?

Without a personal recommendation, choosing a hotel can be a gamble. I recently discovered a customer-focused online site that actually visits its Quikpick recommended hotels. Plus it does not require prepayment, permits cancellations and is very competitive with the other sites. You'll find it on my regular blog, along with additional information about the hotel rating systems.

Tish (Guest Blogger)

Travels with Tish -- Girlfriends' Getaway Guide

Next: More about hotel rating systems

Display hotel reviews by travellers category...

I am not sure if this is new or not but I haven't read it elsewhere, Booking.com has this great functionality for their users to display and order hotel guest reviews by travellers category. This is is a very good example on how an online travel agent has thought a step further to simplify the life of consumers. If you do a search in London, you will find that some hotels have hundred reviews (I have even found a property with more than 1,000 reviews). Until now, it was all reviews usually ordered from the recent reviews to the oldest. Now, you can  select which category of travellers you would like to display reviews and get an overview feedback / rating of the property. This is so easy to use and quick to display.

At the moment, only 7 categories are available: mature couples, with friends, solo travellers, families with young children, young couples, groups and families with older children (not sure what they mean by older children). But it's a good start to customize a bit more the search results according to my criteria and how do I relate to these travellers.

I have heard that TripAdvisor will start to do the same thing sooner or later. They already collect travellers profiles when you submit your reviews. Surely, they will be used in an enhanced version (TripAdvisor 2.0!).

I think what we are missing some relevant categories here: business travellers, gay travellers, travellers with pets, backpackers.

Technorati Tags: booking.com, booking, tripadvisor, hotel reviews, UGC

When a hotel owner responds to hotel reviews...

Hotel reviews can be localized for one particular country. For example, FindThatHotel set up up by Raymond Brown is allowing their consumers to review up to 15,000 UK hotels (I didn't even know there were that many hotels in the UK!). As you can see on their website, reviews are not just about hotels in big cities. FindThatHotel also awards every month the top 3 best rated hotels.

On another note, I was looking at the quality of the reviews and found reviews for the Tides Reach Hotel in Perranporth.You can see that the owner of the property John Boyle has responded to bad reviews. I think it is very important that hoteliers look at these reviews but also have a chance to respond to them as open as it is for consumers. In fact, I would even put a different logo / color code to differentiate between consumers and hotel owners. Again guest reviews should be a 2 ways conversation more than consumers pushing reviews on a website.

Technorati Tags: guest reviews, hotel reviews, findthathotel, findthathotel.co.uk, tides reach hotel