Growth

ORM Strategies for Hotels and Travel: Why Online Reviews Matter

By Ashutosh Kumar

Online reviews impact hotels’ reputation and revenue. Explore proven ORM techniques to track customer feedback and build hotel credibility.

A simple online review can make or break a hotel’s reputation these days.

Crowdsourced review sites like TripAdvisor influence hospitality brands. Success depends on customer referrals. According to a recent survey, 81% of people will read hotel reviews before booking a room.

Online reputation has a massive influence on the competitive hotel and travel sector. Building a trustworthy and recommendable brand image impacts revenue and long-term growth.

So, how can hotels manage their online presence? 

The post explores online reputation management (ORM) strategies tailored for hotel and travel businesses. We'll explore how to manage online reputations, focusing on monitoring feedback and responding.

Let’s learn what is online reputation management and its best strategies.

Importance of Online Reputation for Hotels

The numbers don’t lie – a hotel’s online reputation has powerful implications. Here are some facts to prove why ORM is important:

A 10% increase in excellent reviews can improve a hotel's search ranking.
52% of travellers avoid booking hotels without online reviews.

Unsatisfied guests willing to leave harsh criticism affect businesses. Shiny 5-star appraisals boost reservations and make prospects choose your hotel over competitors.

But it’s not just the ratings numbers themselves. Customers trust crowdsourced reviews when making buying decisions. For hotels, a whopping 97% of guests read at least 6 reviews before booking.

After all, aren’t you going to believe a fellow traveller over any claims made on hotel websites?

Managing an online reputation is essential for hotels to stand out from competitors. Hotels improving their online image see significant benefits:

More web traffic and brand visibility.
Improved website conversion rates.
Expanded direct bookings and loyalty. 
Higher search engine rankings.

Improving your reputation and customer support helps you outperform competitors.

Also, travellers choose the most credible and trusted accommodation options reviewers suggest. Strategic ORM makes your property the one they keep choosing!

Key ORM Components

By now, you must know what is online reputation management and why it’s essential. Let’s see how to elevate it.

At its core, holistic ORM comes down to three crucial components for hotels:

Listening and Monitoring Review Sites

Tune into online review platforms to understand how your brand measures up in the eyes of the guests. Leverage tools that provide insights into these data points for assessing your brand.

Response Protocols for Negative Feedback 

Despite best efforts, negative comments remain inevitable in hospitality. Develop reliable review response strategies your staff follows. Turn complaints into constructive service recovery opportunities. 

Promoting Positive Customer Endorsements

Sharing guest stories provides authentic social proof. That’s why hotel owners try spotting happy customers willing to praise your property. This levels up your hotel business’s online image and awareness.

Let’s explore actionable techniques that improve customer experiences, leading to positive reviews.

Strategy 1: Review Site Listening

An essential starting point for online reputation management is comprehensive review site listening. It begins with monitoring mentions across significant platforms.

Powerful software tools now provide 360-degree listening capabilities from a single dashboard.

Equipped with a listening lens, hotels can:

Track rating averages and review volumes by site.
Set custom alerts for new reviews and rating changes.
Analyse sentiment patterns and themes within the commentary.
Unpack specific keywords and phrases most associated with your brand.
Pinpoint recurring complaints or praise in customer feedback.

These insights paint a detailed idea of the strengths and weaknesses of the business. Identifying problem areas is also convenient this way.

Listening also enables businesses to address important issues. This prevents the problems from becoming severe and affecting the brand's reputation.

Assessing customer perspectives allows hotels to understand their brand’s performance. Further, Monitoring tools offer competitive benchmarking to compare against market rivals.

Yet, doing this for a hotel can be challenging. You need the right workforce who knows their way around ORM. Or, you can choose smarter and go with a reputed brand. Growth Jockey provides online reputation management for hotels.

Strategy 2: Response Protocols

Even the best-run hotels can't avoid the occasional bad review. The bright side lies in response protocols that turn frowns into smiles. But coordinated, consistent and fast replies prove critical.

Start by empowering the staff – from general managers to front desk employees. Offer them access to responding to reviews on major sites like:

TripAdvisor
Google
Facebook

Give them clear principles and sample response templates covering common complaints.

An expert ORM service provider can ease this process for you. 

Strategy 3: Promoting Positivity

Obtaining 5-star reviews from customers involves many efforts. As part of an ORM approach, hotels should prompt positive endorsements from guests.

Small gestures go a long way during stays – follow up on a guest’s departure with a thank you email or survey. Ask them to rate and review their recent stay highlights. Provide direct links to simplify sharing opinions on major platforms.

Happy customers deserve equal attention as complainants. For every negative review, generate two positively-slanted counterparts.

Consider incentives that encourage reviews. For example:

Loyalty points for leaving ratings.
Discounts for referring other patrons.
Free amenities in exchange for testimonials.

Seeking positive reviews enhances the acquisition of new prospective customers.

Benefits of Effective ORM

What are the key advantages of managing an online reputation?

Listen in on conversations happening about competitor properties. Identify their shortcomings and guest pain points you can improve upon. Further, more 4 and 5-star endorsements increase review site and search engine visibility. Happy customers improve click-through rates and conversions.

Excellent ratings enhance your property’s credibility and social proof for potential guests.

Proactive ORM acquires measurable gains in bookings, loyalty, and positive referrals. Over time, good agencies see the fruits of reviews multiply.

Summing Up

A hotel’s online presence can make or break its real-world success. As competition grows, managing brand reputation is crucial. It will set you apart from your competitors.

Once you know the basics of ORM, decide if you'll manage it yourself or hire an expert like Growth Jockey. Keep your online ratings high across key platforms using reliable ORM techniques.

FAQs

1. Why is online reputation vital for hotels?

A hotel's online reputation influences credibility, visibility, conversion rates, and revenue.

Since more than 90% of travellers check reviews before booking, improving your online image is crucial for success.

2. What are the key aspects of hotel ORM programs?

Comprehensive ORM entails site listening to track brand sentiment. You will also need predefined response protocols for addressing complaints. There should be ways to attract new and positive reviews from satisfied customers.

3. How can hotels track online ratings and reviews?

Companies like ReviewTrackers and TrustYou offer tools to help hotels check ratings. They can also analyse comments and pictures on various websites. Hotels gain visibility into health, sentiment patterns, keywords, and changing guest perceptions.

4. Why should hotels respond to negative reviews?

It’s not possible to avoid criticism in the hotel business. But, negative comments help hotels understand the areas they need to improve. Responding to these comments is crucial for maintaining customer relationships.

Quick responses help calm upset guests and improve their satisfaction. Moreover, prompt responses assist business owners in identifying issues in existing policies.