More News On Reviews
Mary Bowling | 31 January 2008 |
Are you getting tired of hearing about how important reviews are in the hospitality industry? Too bad. Reviews are becoming more important every day and the trend isn’t going to change anytime soon.
Now, Frommer’s, one of the original sources of trusted, professional, travel reviews , has teamed up with Trip Advisor, the online review king, to publish “Best Values 2008″, as the cover story for the February 2008 issue of Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel. The first line of the article is “Real travelers know best.” This is why so many travelers seek out the opinions of others before making decisions about their trips.
This also points out that it’s not only high end travelers or those venturing far from home who are searching for advice. Even people booking airport hotels, accommodations for business trips or family lodging near the Iowa State Fair appreciate the opinions of those who have gone before them.
Blizzard Internet Marketing strongly encourages you to take reviews seriously, to learn from them and improve and to manage your reputation online. Please see these additional resources for more information and advice:
Article: Building A Brand Online
Article: Do You Have a Reputation Management Plan?
Free Whitepaper: Online Reputation Management for the Hospitality Industry
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February 1st, 2008 at 5:05 pm
I think it is important to point out that the ratio of reviews posted, to the actual number of stays at any one establishment (or experiences at any one activity or attraction), is incredibly small. This can either hurt, or help, depending on the reviews themselves.
Those that have an axe to grind, for whatever reason, want to exact some sort of revenge, and do this by posting a negative review, with low scores. Whether it’s unjustified or not, it take a lot of positive reviews to boost that “overall score” back up again, no matter if the review is unwarranted and a rebuttal is forthcoming. The only trouble is, most people who have had a good or great stay, are simply less inclined to tell the world about it. It’s unethical for resort and hotel managers to offer incentives to post positive reviews, so you have to rely on powers of positive persuasion, and the goodness of their hearts, to acquiesce.
Just one bad review, when there is only one review posted, can ensure that a hotel, condo complex, activity or attraction will come last out of all those listed. Conversely, one positive review, when there is only one posted, can ensure this is either 1st, or at the top. I’ll give a couple of examples.
In Winter Park, Colorado, Grand Adventures Snowmobiling operation were languishing 9th out of the 9 attractions for Winter Park, only on the basis of 1 negative review posted in January 2007. I have been snowmobiling with Grand Adventures for 17 years, as have thousands of other people, but only 1 review has been submitted, and a bad one at that. I contacted the Owner, and suggested he encourage his “happy” clients to post some reviews of their experiences. 3 positive reviews in January 2008 later, Grand Adventures is now in 2nd position. Who is in 1st position I hear you asking? Pole Creek Golf Club, on the strength of one review, which I wrote back in May 2007!
February 3rd, 2008 at 9:18 am
Brian, you make some very good points! While it is unethical to incentivize favorable reviews, it’s fine to give incentives for doing reviews as long as you don’t dictate their tone. And, despite all of the problems with the review systems that currently exist, they are not going away. Reviews are a fact of life and you must be proactive in dealing with them to your best advantage.
February 4th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
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