Kristy and her husband were not happy with their recent stay at a Utah Comfort Inn. A lack of daily room cleaning and the busload of noisy teenagers staying on the floor above (“like sleeping under a herd of elephants”), caused her to complain to hotel management. Unsatisfied by a discount offer and apology letter, she tweeted about the hotel – getting the attention of Choice Hotels (the parent company).

This story was posted on the Consumerist yesterday, with most of the readers siding with the hotel in this case. Whether this person had a legitimate grievance is debatable, but the bigger issue is that guests are now taking their complaints online.

They go to Twitter

Kristy isn’t alone. A quick search on Twitter reveals hundreds of hotel complaints each day. The stream-of-consciousness format makes it very easy for guests to share what’s bothering them.

They go to their blogs

Ranting about a poor hotel experience on a blog is nothing new: there are whole blogs built around this concept.

The problem with a negative blog review is that it typically has a long shelf life – and can rank highly in search engines for your hotel’s name. This greatly increases the chance a potential guest will find it when they look for you.

Another interesting thing I’ve observed is that unhappy guests will sometimes post a complaint on a seemingly unrelated blog. For example, Wyn complained on my Hyatt Twitter Concierge story that unless the company fixes their customer service and loyalty programs, Twitter isn’t going to help. (point taken)

They go to TripAdvisor, Yelp, Qype…

Of course. You know that.

But even if you have the good humor to create staff t-shirts with 1-star reviews – like San Francisco’s Pizzeria Delfino – these negative reviews can seriously cut into your hotel’s profit.

They go to OTAs

In my experience, hotel marketers generally check guest reviews on sites like Travelocity and Orbitz less often than TripAdvisor.

Unless you monitor your reputation here as well, negative comments could fly under the radar and reduce the revenue you receive through these channels.

They go to Facebook

More and more hotels are moving to set up a presence on Facebook, and as with Twitter, the convenience makes it easy for people to share a bad experience with hundreds of their friends.

They go elsewhere

People can post complaints anywhere on the web: YouTube, Flickr, forums – the possibilities are endless. The reality is that the internet empowers consumers like never before. Anyone can say anything – with a megaphone.

It’s a control freak’s nightmare, but shouldn’t be a huge concern to hotels that make guest satisfaction a top priority.

The lesson

Customers are quickly taking their complaints online if they don’t receive a satisfactory resolution. Neglecting to solve problems offline could really damage your reputation online.

Your Homework: Make sure you’ve set up “listening tools” to quickly catch if someone makes a comment about your business like this.

For a list of free listening tools – plus an action plan for managing your online reputation – see my article on beating negative hotel reviews.

This post is by Hotel Marketing Strategies contributor Allan Simpson.

Potential leisure customers don’t need to buy a stay in a hotel to make them feel good.  There are lots of other things people can do.

Hotels find themselves in a straight fight with everyone else who has in interest in the “disposable income” people have.  As we all know – there isn’t so much income that’s disposable these days, but there’s still some out there.

It may be a straight fight, but it’s not a battle of equals.  This is true David and Goliath combat.  Your problem, as you sit there in your hotel wondering where the next booking is going to come from, is not just that Goliath is a lot bigger than you.  You are also faced with the fact that Goliath is a lot better informed about your target market.  He knows how to influence buying decisions in such a way that even the buyer is completely unaware of what’s going on.

You see, the buying decision is not just which hotel or which location?  There are competing products out there – everything from new cars to boxes of chocolates and they are considerably better at marketing then 99.9% of hotels.

They can say to your potential customers “buy me instead”…and they will obey.

If you want proof, go and invest in the new UK edition of Wired magazine.

There’s an article on page 98 which talks about the following marketing tactics:

• Brain-scan research
• Phone location mapping
• Eye tracking
• Store location mapping
• Face reading ads
• Personality profiling
• Sensory marketing
• Loyalty card linked TV ads

…and many more.

The businesses competing with you for “disposable income” are using techniques like these.  They are very sophisticated.  They invest in their marketing and they use clever people to make sales happen.  Contrast this with the attitude in the hotel industry.  What’s one of the first things hotels cut when things get tight?  Marketing.  In smaller hotels, the person responsible for marketing is just as likely to be found polishing cutlery as planning the next campaign.

There are things you, as a hotelier, can do to improve your online sales.  Outside of this article in Wired magazine, there are things like Persuasion Architecture for websites (I bet your webmaster hasn’t mentioned that one to you recently – or am I wrong?).  It takes effort and costs money to develop, but in exchange you get a good chance of significantly improved “look to book” ratios.

I recently came across a hotel with an astonishing look to book ratio of 76%.  In a world where hotels regard the “average” as around 2%, this is a wonderful example of taking marketing by the scruff of the neck and making it work.  This particular hotel manages its marketing, it has invested heavily over several years and it maintains good people to do the marketing and selling work.  On busy days sales people don’t polish teaspoons.  Instead sales people are given the scope to make sure every day is a busy day.  Just like your competitors from other industries do.

Some hotels will update the copy on their website every year whether they need to or not. Other hotels still think that a one-off advert with the business name as the headline and a picture of a restaurant chair will have people flocking to the door…  Of course, it doesn’t.

If you’re laughing at that thought because you know better and you’d never be caught publishing an advert with your hotel name as a headline (or even worse – a price), take a look at the travel section in any Sunday newspaper to see how many of your industry colleagues are making a dreadful mess of this.  Then laugh a bit more.

If you’re not prepared to make the effort with your marketing, if you’re not prepared to change the way you do things, you won’t get the results you need.

The real competitors you’re up against as an industry are those who sell what are called “substitute” products and services:  As I suggested above, anything from cars to chocolate bars.

These competitors are very, very good – and they’re making marketing work for them by treating it as seriously as they can afford to.  An important point here, is that they can’t afford not to – there is so much investment goes into developing cars and chocolate bars that to skimp on marketing doesn’t even cross their mind.  Reaching out to attract customers with an effective sales message is an essential part of the business process.  Marketing is another stage in their investment, necessary to stand a chance of a good return.

Come to think of it, somebody invested in your hotel.  It might have been you?

How good do you want to be?  How hard are you making your marketing investment work for you?

Your competitors are constantly enticing and encouraging people to buy.  What are you doing?

In a world where people selling competing products are looking right inside customers heads in order to get them to buy, it looks like the hotel industry has a little catching up to do.

Allan Simpson is a hotel copywriter with UK-based HotelSphere.

While planning for a recent trip, I found myself conducting dozens of web searches to find information on my destination. These included:

• Flight information (Kayak.com)
• Airport transportation options (WikiTravel)
• The city’s best design hotels
• Guest reviews & photos of those hotels
• Best ways to get around the city (taxi, public transport, etc)
• Can’t-miss boutiques &  galleries
• Places to eat (Yelp)
• Special events going on
• Typical climate for that time of year (clothes to bring, etc)
• Best places with WiFi I can work from (bonus points if I can drink something caffeinated)
• Running paths for my marathon training (Google Maps & MapMyRun.com)
• Best places to photograph (Flickr is my favorite tool here)
• Interesting day-trips from the city

Keyword research tools confirmed my travel planning behavior is very typical. Every day, hundreds of questions are being typed into search engines to find this type of information about the city you’re in.

Your potential guests are turning to the web for information

Many online travel planning resources aren’t direct competitors, but relying on them to educate your guests is risky.  I see a huge opportunity for hotels to build their own destination information portals with a concierge mindset.

Are your potential guests going to find what they need from you or another website?

The web makes providing information easier

Before the web, it was difficult – if not impossible – for an individual hotel to publish a substantial amount of local information. Production costs would have been prohibitive, and distribution very difficult.

Now with just a simple website, you can share useful information very efficiently.

An example of proactive service

The Witt Istanbul Suites publishes detailed information on transportation options for getting around Istanbul:

Witt Istanbul Taxi Information

Since many of this hotel’s guests come from the UK and other English-speaking countries, the owner wanted to ensure the guests feel as comfortable as possible. To help overcome any language barrier, they offer printable directions in Turkish for the taxi driver:

Printable directions in Turkish

Providing this type of information is brilliant for two reasons:

• It helps guests to feel comfortable before they arrive
• It reduces the workload for your hotel service staff

Customer service 2.0

Instead of calling you directly with questions, tech-savvy travelers may prefer to communicate using the web. Twitter provides one opportunity to answer questions in real time. On the corporate level, we see Hyatt offering concierge services through a dedicated Twitter account.

HyattConcierge on Twitter

With just 131 updates, I assume many of their support requests take place via direct message (for privacy reasons). It’s not a bad start.

Actively engaging potential guests

My only complaint with @HyattConcierge? In my opinion, it’s not a huge improvement over phone or email support.

The real power of Twitter is in offering real-time service to people who aren’t aware of you (yet). Twitter search allows you to reach out to people needing help, and provide useful advice and information.

Independent hotels can do this successfully. A poster child of hotel social media success – New York’s Roger Smith Hotel – actively participates with guests to build their online fanbase.

@RSHotel Twitter Stream

Since this is a relatively new medium for customer service, little things like this gain a lot of attention and build a great reputation.

The best approach: Useful information + Real time support

Ultimately, hotels that want to use this ‘concierge approach’ to their marketing should use both approaches:

1. Build an accessible database of useful, insider information on their destination
2. Monitor real-time communications channels for opportunities to serve

It’s time to throw away the silver bullet

As marketers, we can fall for the trap of thinking all that’s needed is just one more tactic. One little trick that will cause sales to climb dramatically and eliminate our competition.

There is no secret

Great reputations are built around helping other people. It drives positive word of mouth – online and off – which ultimately brings you more guests.

It’s not unique or even particularly clever. But it works, and that’s what matters.

All the clever marketing in the world is useless if potential guests abandon you out of frustration. Hotels that figure out how to combine excellent customer service with new technology are the ones that will succeed online.

3 questions to ask yourself

• “What questions do I have when planning my own trips?”
• “What content could we publish that answers these questions for our destination?”
• “How can we get this information in front of the people that are looking for it?”

Josiah’s note: Today I’m excited to welcome guest expert Neil Salerno to share his insights on budgeting for hotel internet marketing. Neil has worked over 35 years in the hospitality industry, and has experience with franchise and independent hotels ranging from small boutiques to world-class resorts.

I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve been asked how much hotels should spend to develop a successful presence on the Internet. I guess this is one of those questions that would get many different answers from many different people, but I will attempt to present a common-sense approach to the Internet budgeting conundrum.

I’ve read a recent article which produced a survey as a budgeting guide for hotel Internet marketing. I think it’s good to know what others are doing and focusing on, but most of the numbers, that the survey offered, have little relevance to the average hotel. As an example, the article suggested that 33% of their respondent hotels budgeted $100,000 to $500,000 for Internet marketing in 2007; this obviously includes franchise spending versus individual hotels, it appears somewhat unrealistic for the average hotel.

Internet marketing starts with an optimized proprietary web site followed by a well-conceived SEO, web marketing, and link strategy program. Internet marketing is not rocket science; hotels need a site which is easily found through generic search and one which contains the right content to generate reservations.

Make no mistake; the Internet is still the best value in hotel marketing. Dollar for dollar, nothing you can do to promote your hotel can equal the resulting benefits from having a significant presence on the Internet. Most hotels have a web site, but too many of them are ineffective in today’s web marketplace; mediocre is no longer good enough.

The question of how much a hotel should invest in Internet marketing is largely an individual hotel assessment, however, every hotel, small or large, franchise or independent, should have a strong presence on the Internet. The best part is, unlike other areas of marketing expenditures, Internet marketing results are completely measurable and transparent; and therefore, this is spending which can easily be justified to owners and managers.

The amount of money which any hotel can invest in Internet marketing is limited by its total marketing budget; so, how much should be devoted to the Internet. I have always been an advocate of proportional spending in hotel marketing. If your goal for Internet generated sales is 30% of total sales, it is certainly reasonable to devote 30% of your marketing budget to achieve that goal.

The challenge is that not enough hoteliers know how much business their site is generating or how much business their site should produce. Franchised hotels have an edge, in this regard, since most franchises produce a periodic report of Internet production, which can then be compared against their spending for Internet marketing.

Independent hotels can gauge production through reports from their online reservation booking engine. Their advantage is that booking engine reports provide much more detailed information than that which is forthcoming through the franchises. The combination of web site analytics reports, to evaluate visitors to your web site, and booking engine reports, which measure reservations made, gives hoteliers the opportunity to assess the effectiveness of their web site.

The actual dollar amount which should be devoted to Internet marketing will vary greatly depending on the characteristics of the hotel, its market environment, total dollars available, and other factors. As one hotel owner mentioned to me recently, “I don’t have a pre-determined Internet budget, but I am willing to invest whatever is necessary to get my share of Internet reservations.” This is sound thinking.

Invest too little and your results could be below acceptable levels as well. Short-cuts, such as using a web site design template or employing a site designer with no hotel marketing experience or a proven site development record can also be too costly in terms of booking results.

Every time I think of this subject, I think of the story my friend David Brudney offers about the man who is frustrated with a loud creak in his stairs. He calls in a carpenter to fix it; the carpenter examines the stairs, promptly hammers in a nail, eliminating the creaky noise. He hands a bill to the man for $65. The man says “all you did was put a nail in the stairs.” He then looks at the bill and it says:

Adding a nail to the stairs…$2.00

Knowing where to put the nail…$63.00

Knowing how and why consumers search for and choose a hotel, how the search process works on the net, what content is needed on the site in order to have the site found and what is needed to drive visitors to make a reservation; this is all more important than simply knowing how to design an attractive web site.

As I have said so many times before, a hotel web site is not merely an online brochure of your hotel. It needs to be an interactive sales piece designed to be easily found through generic search; and, once found, it must be designed to produce reservations. It is simply not enough to have an attractive web site.

The cost to develop a web site is largely a matter of the time it takes to research, prepare, and create it. There are a number of search and sales elements which are necessary to make it a functional hotel web site. Many people think it’s simply a matter of creating a unique design, but there is a lot more involved. Here are just some of the necessary steps:

• Perform research to find and exploit the most popular search key words and phrases
• Perform a comprehensive online competition analysis to shape the site’s overall substance and design.
• Compose body text (Content) which incorporates those key words in a hierarchy format to facilitate search.
• Incorporate good quality, high resolution, and optimized images into the overall site design to focus attention on site content.
• Design a functional site navigation scheme to facilitate easy viewing of site pages and favorable acceptance by search engines.
• Develop site sales content which contains the necessary hotel sales essentials, such as location, facilities, and attractions.
• Craft a design which is totally compatible with search engine guidelines.
• Develop a “white hat” link strategy to popularize the site and produce a higher page ranking.
• Build local & regional search listings to dominate local competition.
• Monitor site traffic results to evaluate the sites effectiveness.

Once a site is properly developed and published, then and only then, is it ready for search engine optimization and other site marketing techniques necessary to dominate your competition. Any efforts to search optimize or market a poorly developed site is a waste of time and effort.

Making Difficult Choices

Most other forms of hotel marketing have a very limited shelf-life. Printed brochures, print advertising, and even broadcast advertising have very short life spans. Yet, the effective life of a well designed web site is five years or more.

Before the Internet, hotels budgeted and spent huge sums to promote their hotels, with no guaranty of results and, even worse, no practical way to measure results. Web site analytics provides detailed data which smart hoteliers use to track, modify, and measure the results of every Internet dollar invested. Never before have we had that ability.

Just a few years ago, it was difficult to find a web site design company that had any hotel marketing experience. Today, it seems that there are so many more designers laying claim to that experience. Choosing the right company to design, optimize, and market your hotel’s web site is critical to its ultimate success. Every day I hear from hoteliers, from all over the world, who have had attractive sites designed, but are getting terrible booking results.

The first thing one has to do is to stop judging a web site by how nice it looks. The way your site looks is not nearly as important as the way it functions in search and sales. A well-designed site can function well and be attractive, but function is by far the most important.

There are too many so-called hotel web site design companies who know all the Internet buzz-words, but have no clue how to design and market a site for search and sales. Don’t be fooled by the size of the design company bidding to design or re-design your web site; large or small, do they develop functional hotel sites and marketing programs for an affordable price.

When creating your Internet marketing budget, my advice is don’t let yourself be influenced by surveys, tables, and graphs; your Internet marketing program should be decidedly exclusive to your hotel, or group of hotels; their individual markets, funds available, and your goals for Internet sales. Choose a marketing partner with the knowledge of how hotel Internet marketing can work for your hotel.

Neil Salerno, the Hotel Marketing Coach, advises hotels on how they can best use their websites to attract more guests. You may email him at NeilS@hotelmarketingcoach.com.

A negative online reputation can severely limit a hotel’s ability to succeed today. With more and more people using the internet to make their travel plans, reviews by other travelers are playing an increasingly large role.

If your hotel has received negative reviews, you need a solid action plan to work around them. And that’s exactly what I intend to do in this post. Let’s get started…

Step 1: Listen to the feedback

What are people saying about you? Set up tracking tools to be aware of both praise and criticism.

• For Google: Google Alerts (email or RSS updates of the latest Google search results)
• For Blog posts: Technorati (the largest blog search engine)
• For Blog comments: Backtype (what people say about you in response to blog posts)
• For Twitter: Twitter Search (monitor real time feedback)
• For other social media: FriendFeed search, a social aggregator that combines YouTube, Delicious, Flickr and more
• If you’re willing to spend a little money, tools such as Radian6 and Trackur allow you to monitor everything from one dashboard

Knowing exactly what your guests are saying helps you take appropriate action. Many times negative reviews require action at an operational level, so it helps to have a system for sharing this information with the management team.

It’s useful to note that not all reviews are created equal. As any hotel marketing manager will attest, negative reviews typically come in two forms:

Step 2: Respond to the reviews

TripAdvisor allows management responses. So does Qype in Europe, and more recently, Yelp.

When you see a negative review of your property, it can be tempting to fire back with a nasty response. But be careful – doing that can damage your reputation even further. Instead, follow these best practices for responding to negative reviews:

1. Thank the reviewer for their feedback
2. Respond to any positive comments
3. Apologize for any legitimate negative experience
4. Explain the steps you’ll take to prevent that from happening again
5. Allow the guest to contact you offline if followup discussion is needed

Avoid:

• Angry, abusive responses…or any type of personal attack
• Questioning the reviewer’s legitimacy (yes, fake reviews do happen from time to time, but they can be very difficult to prove and it’s better to avoid this accusation)
• Only replying with a discount or coupon (which indirectly encourages abuse)
• Corporate babble with no substantial change – such as

“We are sorry to hear about your inconvenience, and appreciate your comments here. We are happy that you have spoken up so that we may better our property. We will be working diligently to make your stays much more enjoyable in the future.”

If I had a poor experience at a hotel, this type of management response would do absolutely nothing for me. I want specifics! It’s unlikely I would return in the future to see if my stay is “much more enjoyable.”

Step 3: Fix what’s broken

There’s no getting around this. Fundamental flaws that repeatedly leave guests unsatisfied cannot be glossed over with a slick marketing campaign. That’s denial at best and borders on unethical.

Train or change your staff. Bring in a consultant. Hire a designer…or maybe just a plumber for that leaky sink! Do whatever it takes with the resources you have.

Step 4: Tell people you’ve listened and fixed the problem

Now that changes have been made, you need to go back to the audience and let them know you listened and acted on their suggestions.

• Tell the guests directly – in your replies on TripAdvisor and other guest review websites
• Tell the story of how you did it – through videos posted to YouTube…or interviews published on your hotel blog
• Tell the media – with a press release or full-scale PR campaign (depending on the changes you made, of course)

Step 5: Start building your new positive reputation

Effective online reputation management is more than just playing defense – it’s all about proactively building a positive buzz. This is pretty straightforward stuff, but is an essential ingredient of this action plan.

Ask satisfied guests for reviews. Specifically, ask them to review your hotel on sites where you’re struggling the most. If you’re not sure, start with most popular: TripAdvisor.

Launch a special blogger’s campaign. As Malcolm Gladwell taught us in The Tipping Point, obtaining the help of a few influential people is essential to spreading a message. In the online travel community, bloggers often act as Gladwell’s Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen – playing a big role in shaping perceptions. Take advantage of this by finding authors of the most influential blogs, and inviting them to review your hotel.

Begin an aggressive content publishing effort. Content is the key to staying relevant in today’s web. It’s also the best way to build a loyal fanbase. Publishing a large amount of very useful content in multiple media channels is the only way to make sure your voice is heard. It takes a lot of work, but there’s no better way to build a positive web presence.

Dealing with Negative Reviews FAQs

Can I remove negative reviews?

Yes and no. TripAdvisor lets you start over with a clean slate if there was a change in management, but not if you did a renovation.

Can I get in touch with a guest to resolve a problem?

Usually you can only use a website’s management response function to publish a reply. You may try leaving a customer service phone number to encourage offline resolution.

I think a competitor is writing negative reviews.

I recommend you contact the review site directly, and explain your reason for concern.

Can I ask someone to remove their negative review?

Most sites do not allow this. You’ll need to follow the steps above to improve your reputation.

Recommended resources for further research

• Basics of Online Reputation Management by Lee Odden
• 10 Reputations All Hotels, Resorts & Inns Should Monitor Online by Andy Beal
• Which TripAdvisor Reviews Should You Respond To? by Micheal Hraba
• How Companies Should Respond to Negative Reviews by Lisa Barone
• How to Promote an Unpopular Hotel by Alicia Sheber