• NEWS
    • SUBSCRIBE TO TD
    • ADVERTISE WITH US
  • EVENTS
    • THIRSTY THURSDAY
      • RSVP PORTAL
    • VIDEOS
    • PHOTOS
    • COMPETITIONS
    • TRAINING
    • CONFERENCES
  • JOBS
    • SEARCH FOR JOBS
    • POST A JOB
  • EVERYTHING TD
    • About TD (Travel Daily Media)
    • Advertise with TD
    • What is Native Content?
    • Executive team
      • Gary (Founder/CEO)
      • Chris (GM & Managing Editor)
      • Mali (Finance Mgr)
    • Content team
      • Kristin (Senior Editor)
      • Kanchan (Editor)
    • Sales team
      • Anthony (Regional Director-APAC)
      • Paul A (BDM-Asia)
      • Martin (BDM-Asia)
      • Paul M (BDM-Bangkok)
    • Events team
      • June (Director)
      • Arlene (Snr Events Mgr)
      • Krystal (Attendee Relations)
      • Zy (Snr Sales Mgr)
      • Mary (Snr Sales Mgr)
      • Arjay (Snr Sales Exec)
  • SELF SERVICE
    • 2023 TD Media Kit
    • Submit Press Release
    • Self Service portal
    • Upload your Travel Blog

Travel Daily Travel Daily - Informing, connecting and developing the world’s travel industry professionals.

  • MARKETS/SECTORS
  • FEATURES
    • Partner Articles
      • Airlines / Airports
      • Car Rental
      • Conferences
      • Cruising (Ocean)
      • Cruising (River)
      • Destination Management (DMC)
      • GDS / CRS
      • Hotels & Resorts
      • Hotel Management Company
      • Hotel Technology
      • HR / Appointments
      • Insurance
      • Meetings, Incentives, Conferencing, Exhibitions (MICE)
      • Travel Agents (all)
      • Travel Technology
      • Tourism Boards
    • Interviews
    • Industry appointments
    • Podcasts – Features
    • Guest Writers
    • E-Turbo News
    • PR Newswire
  • TRAVEL GUIDES
    • Destination NaJomtien BanAmphur BangSaray *NEW*
    • จุดหมายปลายทาง นาจอมเทียน หาดบ้านอำเภอ บางเสร่ *NEW*
    • South Australia Rewards Wonders *NEW*
    • Ponant Yacht Cruises and Expeditions
    • Encore Tickets (Chinese Guide)
    • Affordable Luxury in Thailand by Centara Hotels
    • Rising Above the Oridinary by Conrad Bangkok
    • The Best of Thailand
  • IWTA SERIES
    • Who is IWTA
    • Meet our featured leaders
    • Refer Someone
    • Refer yourself
  • IWTA AWARDS
    • Awards site
    • Nominate
    • Buy tickets
    • Sponsor
Travel Daily
HospitalityHotelsMobile & Social

Today’s hotel guest is online and digitally savvy: What is your hotel doing to stand-out?

By Megha Paul On Mar 10, 2022
Guest Contributor

Contributors are not employed, compensated or governed by TD, opinions and statements are from the contributor directly

Share

Tracy Dong, Principal Industry Consultant, IDeaS talks about how hoteliers who become more digitally reliant and plan their systems and approach accordingly will be better placed to attract the guest of tomorrow.

The past two years have seen an acceleration in usage and acceptance of digital technologies across all aspects of life. From work, to shopping to interacting socially, the online world has never been busier or more relied upon. As a result, today’s digitally savvy travellers are doing more research, on more online booking platforms before booking hotel rooms.

In such an environment, hoteliers are challenged to stand out in a competitive online field to attract the interest of a potential guest and must carefully manage a guest’s stay to enhance its digital reputation. After all, as the APAC hotel sector seeks to recover business in line with international re-openings in 2022, competition for the first wave of international travellers will be fierce. With so much at stake, the influence of what is said about a hotel online should not be underestimated.

Your online reviews matter

Research conducted by TrustYou showed hotels rated poorly online can face challenges in attracting new guests. Even guests who stayed with the hotel before may start to doubt their loyalty when seeing many not-so-positive reviews. 88 percent of travellers have been found to automatically sort out hotels with review scores under three stars, and 33 percent will even sort out hotels under four stars. This means, regardless of price, one-third of all travellers are likely to only see hotels with higher reputation scores.

If a hotel has a poor reputation and is rated negatively online, a property risks being overlooked by new guests before they can become loyal customers. In a disrupted booking environment, even loyal guests are more likely to shop for the best rates. To not have at least a three-star online review score means guests who may have a favourable opinion of your property or brand won’t display as an option to consider.

Listen to what your customers say online

Sharing economy businesses like Airbnb attract digitally savvy guests through the use of social media as a primary promotional tool. To compete effectively with this, hoteliers need to offer customised guest experiences, as well as maintain a strong presence across all relevant media and communication channels. With the rise in social media outlets like Instagram and Snapchat, there are more touch points than before for hotels to interact with and appeal to potential guests.

Social media engagement should be used to build a wider and better online presence to connect with new guests and gain competitive advantage. Hotels need to be present across all platforms their guests use and understand where people find the hotel’s social media channels. Is it from hashtag searches within an app, an influencer’s promotional posts or via the hotel’s own website?

When it comes to guest engagement, hoteliers should analyse how active their competitor set is on social media—how frequently they post and engagement rates versus their own. Are their any lessons from other hotels’ successful social media activities that can be applied?

While some hoteliers are still reluctant to fully engage with the wider community on social media, this does not mean the conversation about their hotel is not going on without them. Hoteliers who monitor what is being said about their hotel online (and acting where appropriate) will gain the benefits. For example, if common feedback on social media was that the check-in process at a particular hotel was dysfunctional, overcrowded or felt unsafe in the age of COVID-19, the operations team at could step in to provide more staff to alleviate bottlenecks and provide a resolution that creates a better guest experience.

Conversely, if a hotel is rated highly, and the majority of comments relate to the tastefully decorated rooms and comfortable beds, the marketing department will have the opportunity to build on these positive reviews. Revenue managers may also consider strengthening the pricing position of their rooms irrespective of the additional competition from the sharing economy. Studies demonstrate that any positive reputation increase will bring positive price change. Today, online rating sites and social media are important channels to collate hotel feedback and guest experience data that can help—along with ongoing competitor analysis—inform property pricing decisions.

Source guest feedback in real-time

 The importance of loyalty in the hotel sector can’t be underestimated in an increasingly competitive, digitally focused booking environment. It is more cost effective to attract repeat business than it is to bring in new business, and it stands to reason that a satisfied guest is much more likely to come back if they leave a happy customer. Hoteliers need to ensure they create the right experiences for guests and listen to their experiences.

Today’s digitally savvy guest is accustomed to the immediacy of interaction (to be able to interact with a brand about their experience) and response. No longer are guests as willing to take time after they depart a hotel to then assess and comprehensively review their stay. Indeed those that do may actually be more likely to have had a negative experience which would potentially lead to a harmful online review.

Instead, guests now want to interact with the hotel and impact their stay while they can still enjoy it. They are looking to communicate with the hotel directly while they are staying with a hotel, not after the fact. This can be a positive for a hotel, as any negative experiences a guest is having can be surfaced while they are still with the property and management then has the opportunity to remedy the situation to reshape the guest experience and perception.

To enable this functionality and communication with guests, hotels need to upgrade their communication systems to enable direct feedback opportunities—especially via text as many guests won’t call the front desk specifically. Two-way chat capabilities within a hotel app for current guests can provide a platform for connecting with people and encourage those who stay to become part of the hotel brand’s guest ecosystem.

Create campaigns that appeal to the digital native

Properties keen to attract digitally savvy guests could entice travelers through improving their online presence and offering up accommodation packages that appeal to this market. This can be done through matching the look and feel of the hotel’s website and social media feeds to the visuals (design, photography and video) styles that appeal to younger travelers and better targeting SEO key words. Hotel packages like those that combine rooms with an F&B package, or entertainment tickets and a hotel room can help also attract digitally comfortable, experiential millennial guests more likely to base their travels more around experiences than just destinations.

To improve a hotel’s online reputation and harness peer reviews that actively promote the property as a desirable location to stay, hoteliers may also consider enacting customer advocacy programmes that motivate guests to share their experiences online by offering them rewards or discounts on future bookings, or the chance to win a free stay. These incentives help to encourage guests with positive experiences to share their opinions of the hotel online and that in turn can influence online millennial travellers to become future guests.

Plan today for the digital native guest of tomorrow

With an acceleration of adoption of digital technologies and increased familiarity with the online world, more and more travellers are digitally savvy. This has resulted in the customer journey turning into a complex digital pathway, leading to hoteliers having to adjust their guest acquisition strategies and upgrade their technology, pricing and reputation management tools. Importantly, those hoteliers who understand guests will only become more digitally reliant and plan their systems and approach accordingly and will be better placed to attract the guest of tomorrow.

For more information on how your hotel can attract business from today’s digitally savvy guest, please visit: www.ideas.com

Tracy DongIDeaS
Share
You might also like
Features

The Role of a Revenue Manager in Uncertain Economic Times

Travel Tech

IDeaS expands European presence

Hospitality

IDeaS announces collaboration with Hyatt

5 trends to help APAC hoteliers speed market recovery in 2022

Prev Next

Comments are closed.

POPULAR STORIES

Thapanee Kiatphaibool approved as new TAT Governor

Grove of Narberth awarded the ‘UK’s Best Small Hotel’ by…

Luxury Lodges launches Milk Wood Spa at Dylan Coastal…

The most dog-loving states in America

Prev Next 1 of 5,851

PARTNER CONTENT

  • 10 reasons why Caravelle Saigon, a member of WorldHotels Elite collection, is the ultimate choice for upscale travellers in HCMC, Vietnam

    Read More...
  • The Pavilions Phuket: A 5-star personal experience in a tranquil and romantic location

    Read More...
  • Unleash your inner explorer: Aurora Expeditions’ Antarctica 2024-2025 Season offers 25 adventure-packed itineraries

    Read More...
  • How short-term rental platforms in Asia can protect their hosts and customers

    Read More...
  • Exploring Europe seamlessly with Rail Europe’s point-to-point journeys

    Read More...
  • The Role of a Revenue Manager in Uncertain Economic Times

    Read More...
  • The ultimate guide to the 5 best resorts in the Maldives

    Read More...
STAY UPDATED WITH THE LATEST TRAVEL NEWS, JOBS & EVENTS!
Join over 180,000 travel agents, professionals and executives subscribed to our daily newsletter.
You can unsubscribe at any time
Search
MENU
  • News
  • Events
  • Jobs
  • Subscribe

MARKETS

  • Asia
  • Australia
  • New Zealand
  • India
  • Middle East
  • UK & Europe
  • USA

SECTOR

  • Airlines
  • Airports
  • Cruise
  • Hospitality
  • HR & Careers
  • Luxury Travel
  • MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferencing, Exhibitions)
  • Travel Tech
  • Tourism
  • Travel Agents
About
  • BOOK A SALES CALL
  • About TD (Travel Daily Media)
  • Advertise with Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
© 2023 - Travel Daily. All Rights Reserved.
Subscribe to our newsletter
Sign up here to get the latest news, updates and special offers delivered directly to your inbox.
You can unsubscribe at any time
Close

Welcome, Login to your account.

Forget password?

Sign in with Google

Powered by wp-glogin.com

No account? Sign Up
Sign in

Recover your password.

A password will be e-mailed to you.

CREATE A NEW PROFILE
SIGN IN TO EXISTING PROFILE
back

LOG IN

Welcome back, Log in to your account.

Continue with Facebook
Continue with Google
Continue with Twitter
Continue with LinkedIn

OR
Log in using your email
Forgot password?
back

Recover your password.

back

SIGN UP FOR FREE

(New User)

Be part of our community of seasoned travel and hospitality industry professionals from all over the world.

I want to
Only letters and numbers are allowed
Please enter a valid email address
Must be between 6-8 characters
Must be the same with Password
  • LOGIN / SIGN UP
  • NEWS
    • MARKETS
      • Asia
      • China
      • Pacific
      • India
      • Middle East
      • UK & Europe
      • USA & Canada
    • SECTORS
      • Airlines
      • Airports
      • Cruise
      • Hospitality
      • HR & Careers
      • Luxury Travel
      • MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferencing, Exhibitions)
      • Travel Tech
      • Tourism
      • Travel Agents
    • FEATURES
      • Partner articles
        • Airlines / Airports
        • Car Rental
        • Conferences
        • Cruising (Ocean)
        • Cruising (River)
        • Destination Management (DMC)
        • GDS / CRS
        • Hotels & Resorts
        • Hotel Management Company
        • Hotel Technology
        • HR / Appointments
        • Insurance
        • Meetings, Incentives, Conferencing, Exhibitions (MICE)
        • Travel Agents (all)
        • Travel Technology
        • Tourism Boards
      • Interviews
      • Industry appointments
      • Travel Bloggers
      • Podcasts – Features
      • Mergers & Acquisition
        • Buyers/Investors wanted
        • Business for sale
        • News
  • EVENTS
    • Thirsty Thursday
      • RSVP Portal
    • Photos
    • Videos
    • Webinars
    • Competitions
    • Conferences
  • JOBS
    • Search for Jobs
    • Post a Job
  • TRAVEL GUIDES
    • Destination NaJomtien BanAmphur BangSaray *NEW*
    • จุดหมายปลายทาง นาจอมเทียน หาดบ้านอำเภอ บางเสร่ *NEW*
    • South Australia Reward Wonders *NEW*
    • Ponant Yacht Cruises and Expeditions
    • Encore Tickets (Chinese Guide)
    • Affordable Luxury in Thailand by Centara Hotels
    • Rising Above the Oridinary by Conrad Bangkok
    • The Best of Thailand
  • IWTA SERIES
    • Who is IWTA
    • Meet our featured leaders
    • Refer Someone
    • Refer yourself
  • IWTA AWARDS
    • Awards site
    • Nominate
    • Buy Tickets
    • Sponsor