The growing popularity of travel review sites means that every hotel should partner with a company offering hotel reputation management services to ensure their ongoing favorable brand name and, ultimately, their profitability.
Travelers and hotel guests are increasingly becoming a determining factor in how the public perceives a hotel’s brand name and reputation. Because of the widespread reach of the internet, this means that hotel brands must focus additional resources on monitoring and, at times, replying to negative comments about their hotel. This is the reactive part of hotel reputation management services. At the same time, a company offering these types of management services is proactively improving a hotel’s reputation by evaluating every aspect of their service, facilities, and amenities.
Online and Offline Services
A company offering quality hotel reputation management services suggests ways to improve their client’s services to increase their brand value. Their suggestions may be in reaction to a customer’s posting of an unfavorable review, but these companies also look at competing hotels to gauge the value of the competitor’s brand in the public’s eye.
The reputation management company takes in both the online and offline reactions to their client’s brand image and reputation. They create a strategy to either reinforce the brand if it is viewed favorably or pinpoint the problems and suggest viable solutions if the brand name is being harmed.
Valuable Service for Large and Small Hotel Brands
The value of these services in hotel reputation management is crucial to both large chain hotels and small boutique hotels.
There is an old saying that says “a rising tide floats all boats.” In the large hotel chain industry, this can be interpreted that a favorable review of one of the hotels in a branded chain improves the fortunes in all the hotels under that same brand name. This is true. However, the reverse is also true. A bad series of reviews of one hotel can negatively affect the profitability of all the hotels in the chain. If the chain is publicly traded, it can drive down their stock prices and damage investor confidence.
For boutique hotels that may rely on both local patronage and seasonal tourism, an unfavorable review can be catastrophic. Often these hotels do not have the personnel to devote to keeping track of their brand name across all the review websites. But missing an unfavorable review and not replying to it is seen as unforgivable and uncaring in the world of review websites.
Therefore companies that offer services in hotel reputation management are becoming vital to the livelihood of both large and small hotels. The power of the individual has never been greater than in today’s world of social media, influencers, and travel review websites.
Hotels need to do everything that can to preserve the reputation and integrity of their brand names and their hotel’s services. By partnering with a reputation management company, they now have the resources to become both reactive and proactive in defending and improving their brand name.