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4C Hotels increases direct bookings by 5% managing guest reviews


4C Hotels has seen its brand website bookings increase nearly 5% and its TripAdvisor ranking jump from 465 to 434 in the past six months since installing RTReview, a guest review management tool.

Guest reviews have enabled 4C Hotels to better understand its market position by comparing services, special offers and promotions against competitors and to adjust the revenue strategy accordingly. Prior to the installation of RTReview, by RateTiger, 4C Hotels only monitored its key guest feedback portals including TripAdvisor and Qype. However within weeks the hotel group noticed that its properties were receiving significant feedback across other bookings sites including Holidaycheck, Yelp, Trivago and several other websites previously not monitored. 

“Reviews have helped us to understand more about our guests and to improve our offering to meet their needs’’ said Amber Virani, Sales & Marketing Manager, 4C Hotels. “When we see a negative review, we carry out a proper investigation and respond quickly and efficiently to our guest which has enabled us to get even closer to our guests.”
With so many social channels it was impossible to manually search and manage all review sites. “RTReview has given us a wonderful way to measure our online presence and knowledge of how we can stay ahead of our competitors. It helps us to quickly and easily analyse guest feedback from online reviews so we can understand where there’s a room to improve.  We are now offering more promotions, special offers and implementing more marketing initiatives that seems to be of greater interest to our guests.”
4C Hotels installed RTReview from RateTiger in December 2011 that consolidates all guest feedback into a single interface for better management and is now monitoring over 60 guest review portals including Facebook and Twitter.
Review portals have received a lot of negative press due to the quality of feedback from guests and their potential fraudulent nature, however 4C Hotels proves that proactive management of these portals can deliver revenue and bookings results.
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Newshound: Trends and Reports – Hotel Online Distribution


Making hotels comfortable with the notion of confirmed demand
A start-up called BackBid is offering hotels the ability to reach confirmed travelers – in other words, travelers that are definitely going to be traveling, not just those who are doing research or comparison-shopping online. With such offering, hotels can assess who is coming to their market, how much they are willing to pay, and what their travel preferences are, whereas consumers get to choose from personalised bids designed to meet their needs/ preferences.

TripAdvisor expands Facebook integration
Trip Friends will now start showing links to reviews from people within their friend’s network. This is probably the biggest development to the Trip Friends channel on TripAdvisor so far and plugs into where TripAdvisor is heading – tapping into the social graph of users so that they can rely on reviews from people they trust or like-minded travelers that may share similar interest by virtue of being within an existing social circle.

Room 77 grows up, adds loyalty points
In addition to searching multiple online travel sites simultaneously, Room 77 now helps travelers uncover special rates, including advanced purchase, AAA member rates and senior discounts – saving travelers up to 50% off other online travel providers. 


Top three hotel marketing myths (and the truth behind them)
The way consumers shop for and book hotel accommodations has evolved and disciplines such as social media and mobile have entered the picture, and likely won’t be leaving it any time soon. The article identifies and explores these myths and reveal the truths behind them.

Major markets enjoy the benefits of raising rates
Rising occupancy levels will enable hotel managers in the nation’s major markets to significantly raise their room rates in 2012. The average daily room rate for hotels in the 50 metro areas for which PKF Hospitality Research prepares a Hotel Horizons fore- cast is projected to increase 5.3 percent in 2012. This compares to an ADR increase of just 2.7 percent for all other U.S. hotels located outside of these 50 markets. Favorable supply and demand conditions in the large metro areas during 2010 and 2011 have set the stage for the strong 2012 ADR forecast.
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Newshound: Trends and Reports – Hotel Online Distribution

Social Media and Review Analytics Guide for Hotel Marketing
While online reviews understandably receive a lot of attention in the hotel industry from a reputation management perspective, there is another use that is equally important: setting the direction of your marketing and advertising campaigns.
The TripAdvisor effect: Are online reviews making hotel brands irrelevant?
Take a destination based Google search for Super 8 Motels, for example. On the front page, you’ll see ratings that hotel guests have written about particular Super 8s on TripAdvisor, Yahoo Travel and Yelp. Importantly, the reviews vary widely.

The Smart Hotelier’s Guide to 2012 Digital Marketing Budget Planning
2012 is quickly approaching and budget-planning season is upon us. Whether you are just starting to think about where you are going to allocate your dollars, or are moving towards finalizing your budget for next year, this is the perfect time to take a step back, review the state of the industry as well as your property’s successes and failures in 2011, and prepare for a year of driving the most revenue ever through your most cost-efficient channel – the hotel website.
ADR, guest satisfaction: Opportunity and action
This is the first in a series of columns from J.D. Power’s Stuart Greif that analyzes and provides deeper insights into the company’s 2011 J.D. Power and Associates North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Study.
 
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Newshound: Trends and Reports – Hotel Online Distribution


How much exactly a hotel should invest in Internet marketing in 2012
Allocating the appropriate amount of your property’s overall marketing budget to online marketing can be more of an art, than science. Here’s why you need a significant investment in online marketing to increase direct bookings and key areas to focus your efforts on to realise the highest digital ROI.                                                                                                
http://www.eyefortravel.com/news/hotels/how-much-exactly-hotel-should-invest-internet-marketing-2012

Google, Facebook and TripAdvisor on what’s next for online travel

 Which emerging trends will fizzle, and which will pop? What is the most significant opportunity (or critical threat) that our industry faces? Which disruptive forces will re-shape the online travel landscape as we know it in the next years?                                                                                                    
http://hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/google_facebook_and_tripadvisor_on_whats_next_for_online_travel 

How OTA hotel reviews drive bookingsMove over, TripAdvisor. There’s a new leader of hotel reviews in town: online travel agencies. According to a PhoCusWright study of 27,000 U.S. hotels comprising 65 major brands, two out of every three online traveler reviews were posted to an OTA. The remaining third, or 34%, were posted to a travel review site like TripAdvisor.                                                                  
http://www.hotelnewsnow.com/Articles.aspx/6295/How-OTA-hotel-reviews-drive-bookings

Study: Despite Soft Spots, 2011 Global Business Travel Poised To Surpass $1 Trillion Global business travel this year will jump 9.2 percent and surpass $1 trillion, according to a Global Business Travel Association Foundation study. That increase would follow an 8.4 percent bump during 2010, which more than offset a nearly 8 percent decline in 2009.                                                                                                                                                                               
http://www.businesstravelnews.com/Worldwide-Travel/Study–Despite-Soft-Spots,-2011-Global-Business-Travel-Poised-To-Surpass-$1-Trillion/?a=trans 
 

RevPAR Growth Momentum Expected to Yield to New Economic Reality According to PwC US Lodging Industry Forecast
An updated lodging forecast released today by PwC US shows that the lodging recovery is largely intact, yet a resetting of the economic outlook has lowered expectations of revenue per available room (RevPAR) growth for the remainder of the year.                                                                                                                                                                  http://www.hospitalitynet.org/news/154000320/4052784.html 
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Optimising Revenue Through Social Media – By Sascha Hausmann, CEO, eRevMax

Social media is no longer just a hub of sharing activity between people, it has now become a platform for businesses to promote and sell their products. From Facebook, TripAdvisor, Twitter over to the “oldie” eBay these channels demand a new way of interacting with guests while also securing additional revenue and bookings.

The social media revolution has provided new ways of consumer communication, sharing information and being close to a community. While the industry still thought consumer reviews exploded quickly, the likes of Facebook, twitter and Groupon have taught us what pace customers can take when adopting new phenomena once provided with the right toolset.

Despite the burden being forced upon the travel industry, it has also delivered new opportunities for businesses to get involved in such interaction and yet again provide targeted audiences with adequate product.

Facebook (over 500 million active users), MySpace (44 million active US users) and Twitter (21 million active users) have significantly influenced the way people interact, what they trust, how they share their experiences and the advice they offer/receive to/from their ‘friends’. These consumer portals are now becoming powerful marketing and business tools that the hospitality industry needs to address in the upcoming years to avoid losing out on potential revenue avenues or aggressive branding opportunities. Although the latter only has an indirect impact on revenue, it can help to direct more traffic to the hotels own websites that in return provides for more profitable income.

TripAdvisor (34 million monthly visitors) originally caught hoteliers by surprise. It felt that almost within weeks hotels had to deal with negative “press” although the actual movement has been going on for years and was nothing new. In the meantime online guest review websites have taken off with nearly every OTA incorporating some form of guest feedback that’s visible to new customers. Today hoteliers have no choice – either interact positively with guest reviews or see the business suffer. Hotels that effectively manage their guest reviews, both good and bad, encourage more reviews, which as a result sees the rating of their properties rise. As more guest review websites incorporate booking options the impact that your position can have on your revenue is immense.

Read on further: http://www.eyefortravel.com/news/europe/optimising-revenue-through-social-media