Briefing: Reviews & credibility – Websites strive to build trust

Online reviews continue to influence customer decisions. Data from Deloitte shows that 81% of general consumers read reviews and check ratings. In the hospitality industry these reviews are being published on different social media sites, direct on hotel and booking sites, and are frequently being written on mobiles and on mobile apps. Knowing that fake reviews are possible, trust between companies and consumers is becoming increasingly important.

In this briefing four experts discuss credibility and making the most of reviews.

According to Deloitte 42% of holiday makers use review sites. But companies are also looking for ways to show reviews on direct platforms. As discussed in the above videos, Choice Hotels is verifying reviews that are posted on its website, and TrustYou is a company offering tools and solutions for Travel and Tourism companies to display credible reviews to customers. Expedia is also taking step to ensure only true customers can leave reviews, whilst also displaying TripAdvisor posts alongside these.

Foursquare is a mobile app and review site for food, drink, activities and shopping, on which comments are always linked to specific locations. The site has more than 55 million users worldwide who have ‘checked in’ to locations over seven billion times. Business can ‘claim’ their locations in order to interact with the customers who are posting on the site. Two million businesses have done this so far. Research shows that connecting with customers who are leaving reviews can have a positive impact on business.

One review site that covers all industries is Yelp. In the first quarter of 2015 more than 50% of Yelp content (reviews and photos) was generated on mobile devices and 65% of searches came from mobile devices. Interestingly in the first quarter of 2015 there were many more positive reviews posted than negative ones with 42% of reviews giving a 5 star rating, 25% giving 4 stars and only 14% of reviews giving 1 star.

Validity and trust is of course important to the success of review sites themselves. Yelp has a review filter which it says helps to spot fake reviews. It has taken legal action against people trying to buy and sell reviews and has recently filed a lawsuit against a company which falsely said it could remove negative reviews form the site.  Yelp is not the only company taking this kind of action. Amazon too has recently taken out a lawsuit over fake reviews.

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Video clips produced by yBC for the Hospitality Channel, including interview from industry conferences such as the IHIF conference as well as specific Hospitality Channel shoots.

Briefing: Business, Leisure, Community – Hospitality for millennials

New hospitality brand Zoku launched this week. This and other brands are responding to the needs of the millennial business traveller. BridgeStreet’s Bleisure Report 2014 found that the line between business and leisure travel is blurring as more people are looking for ways to include leisure activities into their business trips. In the survey ‘Nearly half of respondents (46%) add personal travel days to business travel “every trip” or to “most trips”.’

Young business travellers want to experience the city they are in and socialise and want to stay somewhere that enables them to do this, as discussed in these videos:

BridgeStreet’s survey of 640 international guests shows that instead of only exploring cities on leisure trips, ‘83% of respondents use time on business trips to explore the city they’re visiting.’ The report also states that: ‘The top reason for bleisure travel is a desire to see the world and gain cultural experiences’. This is also shown in TripAdvisor’s Trip Barometer 2015, in which 29% of people said their reason for visiting a specific destination was that they ‘love exploring the area’.

Zoku is aimed at people who need short or extended stay accommodation in a new city for work. The accommodation incorporates social spaces, events, and app to help guests to make connections. Zoku’s launch announcement goes so far as to proclaim the ‘end of the hotel room’. Instead of bedrooms there will be ‘lofts’, which are designed to be living and work spaces rather than just places to sleep, and are intended to be more homely and social in the same sized space as a hotel room. There is a new take on the holiday rep as ‘Zoku Community Managers’ will help make introductions between guests. The first Zoku will open in Amsterdam in autumn 2015.

Services apartment brand SACO is also targeting the bleisure traveller. Their research shows that Millennials are 50% more likely to have travelled for business in the past two years than people over 35. It says that 14% of millennials see travelling as an important networking opportunity (as opposed to 7% of their older peers), and that ‘millennials look for accommodation with shared spaces for socialising in’.

Radisson Red is a new brand from Radisson hotel group which again is promising spaces for Gen Y to work, play and socialise.

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Video clips produced by yBC for the Hospitality Channel, including interview from industry conferences such as the IHIF conference as well as specific Hospitality Channel shoots.

Briefing: Meta-disruption in hotel bookings

According to Statistica, over 35% of Millennial and Gen X travellers (all adults under 48) use ‘meta-search’ when planning travel, allowing them to automatically combine search engine results. It is ten years since the launches of two well-known meta-search sites Kayak and Trivago in 2005. In 2015 meta-search is one technology that is developing fast and impacting on hoteliers. According to Skift, changes to Google’s hotel finder search will make Google a big player in the meta-search arena this year.

With the hospitality booking landscape constantly changing these videos have expert discussion on approaches to distribution:

Meta-search allows the consumer to limit the amount of ‘clicks’ from the beginning of their holiday internet research to their booking. While the actual booking is made with the OTA or the hotel the search site allows the researcher to compare deals on the same trip across different sites. This ease and efficiency has made meta-search popular. With consumers choosing to use this shortcut it is important for hospitality businesses to consider whether or not they are showing up in the search results. To appear in meta-search results hoteliers can list themselves on the website (an option on sites such as TripAdvisor or Kayak), or on an OTA (Trivago only lists OTA inventory), which tend to be more prominent in results.

Trivago is the world’s largest online hotel search with 100% growth every year since 2008. It shows results from 266 booking sites (which encompasses 726,065 hotels).

Kayak receives over one billion queries each year. It also has a mobile app which has been downloaded 40 million times.

Metasearch is also frequently used for booking flights on sites such as Monomondo, Skyscanner, and Travel Supermarket.  There is even an apartment specific meta-search site Apartum for consumers preferring alternative accommodation to hotels.

If you’ve been sent to this page and you’re not yet on the circulation list to receive these regular briefings and you would like to sign up, you can do see here. It’s free.

Video clips produced by yBC for the Hospitality Channel, including interview from industry conferences such as the IHIF conference as well as specific Hospitality Channel shoots.

Briefing: Look to the Future of Hospitality

If we could take a glimpse at the hospitality industry in five or ten years’ time what would it look like? 95% of people think, ‘hotels will increasingly look to new technologies to drastically increase efficiency, reduce costs, personalize the customer experience and improve service’. In the Future hotels will need to provide more personalised service and enhance guest experiences online and off. They will need to connect with their guests and allow them guests to connect to their devices. They will be deconstructing and reimagining hospitality spaces and considering new possibilities.

This week our videos explore what the future of hospitality will look like:

Connecting to mobiles and apps can help hotels personalise service. According to Grant Thornton’s Hotel 2020 report: ‘46% of millennials agree that being able to check in/out using a mobile device would motivate them to return.’ The report also shows that towards 2020 hotels will be making a bigger effort to connect with customers on digital platforms, with 30% of global hoteliers planning to hire staff specifically for social media.

Technology will continue to enhance guest experience with guest being able to more easily control their room features through mobile devices. New technologies like augmented reality could change how travellers interact with the space around them using wearable technology or mobile phones. Some companies are already starting to use virtual reality technologies. Best Western gave children an opportunity take a photo with a virtual Disney movie star and Marriot offered a 4D virtual travel experience, as reported in the Guardian.

A survey for Amadeus, Hotels 2020-Beyond Segmentation, asked people in the travel industry and on hotel discussion forums about the future of hospitality. 86% of respondents thought that by 2020, ‘customers will have the ability to choose the size of room, type of bed, amenities, audio-visual facilities, business equipment, etc. on booking and pay accordingly’. 96% said that ‘hotels will need to develop strong social media ‘listening skills.’

If you’ve been sent to this page and you’re not yet on the circulation list to receive these regular briefings and you would like to sign up, you can do see here. It’s free.

Video clips produced by yBC for the Hospitality Channel, including interview from industry conferences such as the IHIF conference as well as specific Hospitality Channel shoots.

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