While browsing TripAdvisor today, I came across this popup window encouraging me to “like” their Facebook page:

I like the way this is worded: “Did TripAdvisor help you today?”

It seems this approach could quickly grow their fan numbers on Facebook.

What do you think? Is this too pushy, or could you use it on your blog or information site?

Today we’re going to talk with Micheal Rosney, and discover how the Killeen House Hotel consistently receives excellent reviews from their guests online…and how they received the TripAdvisor Travelers’ Choice 2009 award.

Josiah: Tell us a little bit about your hotel.

Michael: The Killeen House is a 23 bedroom Country House style of Hotel, located just outside of the town of Killarney: Ireland’s premier Tourist destination. It has been owned and personally managed by Michael and Geraldine Rosney since 1992. Mainly targeted towards the upper end of the International Leisure Market, it is a uniquely Irish property, with the emphasis firmly placed on good friendship, good food and good water pressure in the showers! As much as 70 percent of all of our business is either direct repeat business or direct referral from past Guests. This is a major plus for us, because it means that our Guests know exactly what we can offer them, and we know exactly what it takes to meet – and hopefully exceed – their vacation expectations.

How have you achieved the success you have on TripAdvisor?

We became hyper conscious – to the extent of being almost paranoid -  of it! When we first became aware of TripAdvisor a couple of years back, we immediately identified it as a tool that had tremendous potential for us to get the message and the ethos of our property out into a Marketplace that we otherwise had no hope of reaching. We made all of the great people working with us aware if it, and explained to them that this was an opportunity that we felt would have very tangible and positive long term benefits for the Killeen House.

We have always operated our business on the basis of treating our Guests firstly as individuals to be welcomed and looked after in a personal and individual way, and secondly as new friends, who we want to show a great time to while they’re visiting with us. And anyone glancing through the reviews we have garnered on TripAdvisor will be clearly struck by the big number of them that specifically mention the PEOPLE rather than the PLACE. Its not within our power to make the bedrooms bigger, or to order up 80 degrees of sunshine, but it is very certainly within our power to ensure that all of our Guests receive a uniquely warm and Irish welcome from all of us here in the Killeen House…..

How are you encouraging guests at your hotel to talk about their stay online – and share their experience with others?

Given that we are a small operation, we have ample opportunity here in the Killeen House to meet most of our guests on a personal level, If we find our for example that they have heard of us via TripAdvisor, than that is a natural opportunity for us to ask them to keep on spreading the word!

Thankfully, we frequently receive notes and e-mails from our Guests after they have departed, telling us how much they have enjoyed their stay with us. Again, a great opportunity to ask them to post a TripAdvior review of their experience. We have found that after the initial first number of reviews, that it almost becomes a self-perpetuating thing

Read more…

As Micheal pointed out, TripAdvisor has recently floated the idea of charging hotel owners $500 to list their website & phone number on the reviews page. When I took this survey, the listed price had dropped to $300:

TripAdvisor Survey

If TripAdvisor went ahead with this idea, would you pay the fee and get the listing?

I’d do it in a heartbeat.

Here’s why: I know it’s easy for people to find your website & phone number in a Google search, but this opportunity to capture additional traffic and direct bookings would be a bargain at that rate.

I know the volume of traffic that TripAdvisor generates. If you have any experience in hotel internet marketing, you know it is very hard to get this level of exposure for $25 a month. Even one extra booking a month through this would pay for the fee. I’m a pragmatist, and when I look at the potential return on investment here, it looks attractive.

What do you think?

Our recent article about TripAdvisor’s top London hotel got me excited.What additional hotel marketing and management lessons could we learn from other top guest-rated hotels? I’m going to start a little series interviewing management at these TripAdvisor all-stars to find out.

Today we’re going to talk with Adele Gutman, VP of Sales & Marketing at HKHotels. All four of their Manhattan properties are among TripAdvisor’s top 10 New York City hotels, including the Casablanca Hotel and the Library Hotel.

Let’s begin.

Josiah: Give us a little introduction to your hotels.

Adele: Let me share what I wrote on our website, which I think says it all:

HKHotels & Hospitality is a family owned and operated collection of small luxury hotels in New York City that takes a unique approach to the art of hospitality. Each of our small European-style New York hotels has its own distinctive personality and charm. What they share is a commitment to providing timeless beauty, exceptional value, and an outstanding travel experience for every guest visiting NYC.

HKHoteliers care about people, and we care about building lifelong relationships with our guests.  To achieve that, our philosophy is to hire the kindest, happiest people we can find, people who are naturally inclined to love to help people. Then, we develop their natural talents and train them to become professional hoteliers so that they are more than simply their title, whether it be Bellman, Guest Service Agent or Housekeeper; they are all professional luxury hoteliers dedicated to providing personalized luxurious service to each traveler who crosses their path.

All four of your Manhattan properties are among TripAdvisor’s top 10 New York City hotels. How did you do it?

Several years ago when we first began to notice TripAdvisor, we saw that one of our hotels was number seven, and another was number 56. Because one of our hotels was at the top of the list, it never seemed out of the realm of possibility to have them all up there. So, this may sound very “Oprah” but seriously, several years ago we “set an intention” to have all of our hotels in the top 10%. We started making a big deal out of the reading of every review at our morning meetings, to observe what our guests really responded to and learn what we could do better. We shared ideas between the hotels, and included all our staff, including every bellman and housekeeper in the process. Our staff loved it.

We strive to hire the nicest happiest people so between their good nature and the training they get at the hotels, they take so much pride in the appreciation of the guests, and it is addictive. The result, at least for us, is a team of people who are strongly motivated to make the guests happy.  Happy staff make for happy guests and vise versa. With the right support from the leadership in terms of empowering staff to take initiative, it is self perpetuating.

Sometimes, hotels have a problem bridging the “offline to online gap.” How are you encouraging guests at your hotels to talk about their stay online – and share their positive experiences with others?

We believe that satisfying your guests’ needs and expectations is not going to get you any reviews. If you want your guests to shower your hotel with good word of mouth, both on and offline, you have got to wow them with exceptional service and a unique experience that leaves them with something to talk about. If they get home and their friends, colleagues and  associates ask them how their trip was, you want them to be able to say, “you’ll never believe what an awesome hotel we stayed at. They had this, that and the other thing, and the people there, that was the best part of all.”

Casablanca Hotel

Let’s move beyond TripAdvisor. What other internet marketing tactics are your hotels focusing on right now?

We are a small company, so our time is limited, but we are tinkering with Citysearch, Yelp, Facebook and Twitter.

But TripAdvisor is the powerhouse that brings guests to us from Europe, Asia, Australia, and South America. Nothing else comes close.

Anything online that has little to no cost yet drives visitors to our website, we love to work on. We have about 1,100 fans between the four hotels on facebook, and that is with no financial investment and really, just a small amount of time, so it gives us another way of communicating with our audience and strengthening the bond with our clients.

In the past, which marketing tactics have performed best for you? Which ones don’t quite live up to the hype?

Giving each hotel a bit of a concept, a unique identity, gives the guests and the journalists a hook to rest their story on. The Library concept in particular is so unique, everyone loves to talk about it and write about it. Creating interesting packages at the hotel also gives people something to talk about.  We get a lot more play and exposure from that than anything else we can do.

We really avoid paid advertising, because we feel our resources should all go towards things that enhance the guest experience instead, but we have on rare occasion traded for some print ads. We never felt any big benefit from that as much as we do from the on and offline word of mouth. Free wine and cheese in the evenings makes people happy. That is what performs well for us.

Library Hotel

What has been your biggest obstacle in designing or launching your online marketing campaign? How did you overcome it?

We came to realize that there was no shortcut or easy way out. We had to make the time to learn about internet marketing for ourselves as opposed to relying on outside experts, and test our ideas, evaluate the results, and continually grow to become experts for our own needs. If you have a true entrepreneurial spirit at your business, there is no one outside the company that will care as deeply about the results as you will.

There is so much great advice available on the internet for people who seek it out. People are so generous about sharing ideas. We are still in the learning process, and perhaps always will be, but everyone at our company has begun to embrace the work and we are getting better at it all the time. The thing I feel we really are strongest at is the key to making any business a long term success. We build our business brick by brick by making sure everyone who checks out is delighted enough not just to return but to create more future business through referrals both on and off line.

Do you have any favorite marketing resources you would like to share with our readers?

I have my Google Reader programmed to send me anything that gets written on the internet about Internet marketing particularly with regard to hospitality. That’s how I found you, Josiah!

What’s the most exciting trend you see in hotel marketing? Why?

I guess would have to say that I really have my eye on Twitter. I am not doing much for the hotels on it now, but we just launched a new restaurant in the Broadway Theater District called Montenapo (@Montenapo) so I am experimenting with the joys of Twitter there.

We are just in the baby steps, but already, there is no doubt about it: Twitter has definitely brought new customers to Montenapo who would not have found us otherwise. And it’s free so you’ve got to love that!

Thank you for your time, Adele.

This post is by guest expert Rajul Chande.

As of July 2009, The Egerton House Hotel is currently the number one guest-rated London hotel on TripAdvisor.  I recently met Jonathan Raggett, CEO of Red Carnation Hotel Collection, to try to understand how it got there.

This group runs a stunning 4 of TripAdvisor’s top 6 London hotels at present, including the Egerton House.  It’s an enviable position to be in.

But the focus here is on the Egerton House: this is after all the current “number 1″  and was also the venue of our meeting.  How did a relatively unsung and small (30 bedrooms) hotel make it to the top of the charts?

Before revealing some answers, let’s peek at a few recent TripAdvisor guest comments which have lifted the Egerton House to top spot:

The above comments clearly highlight that staff at the Egerton House possess bucketloads of character and charisma.

From what Mr Raggett told me this is not accidental.

They consciously recruit “characters” with personality and flair.  So for example you have Antonio at the hotel’s bar who is famous for his martinis.

Head Barman Antonio struts his stuff at the cosy Egerton House bar

Then there is Alex who not only checks you in but may also sing at your table!  There’s also friendly Murat – one of the managers who cheerfully showed me around the hotel.

All the staff I ran into had a calm and relaxed attitude.  This isn’t always the case in luxury hotels which often have an overbearing formality in the air.

The staff here seem to be driven by an expectation of success rather than a fear of failure.  This frees them to be themselves and excel.

I also noticed that the hotel cultivates a distinctly cosy and intimate atmosphere – helped by its small size.

It’s a place that doesn’t stand on ceremony and is rather a hotel where guests can simply chill out, unwind and feel pampered.

Mr Raggett told me that although great effort is made to recruit the “characters” described above, continuous training is equally critical.

There is a focus on “TNTs” (“Tiny Noticeable Touches”).  So for example, guests’ favourite drinks and newspapers are remembered, their favourite music arranged in advance in their rooms and so on.

Training is also tailored to the hotel’s specific needs and driven by continuous “mystery shopping” rather than generic standards.

This – as well as the emphasis on personalisation – echoes the approach taken by Claridge’s.  And to the extent that you can usually stay at the Egerton House for a few quid less than Claridge’s, it offers good value.

Rooms at the Egerton House have a comfy, traditional style

When I walked around to see some rooms, I found them nice but fairly standard fare for a luxury hotel.  They were immaculately presented but I don’t think you’d choose this hotel on the strength of its rooms alone.

For me the hotel’s main asset is the intimacy and warmth conveyed by the surroundings and above all the staff.  It’s a unique establishment run by a talented team with great attention to detail.

With only 30-odd rooms to supervise they know the hotel inside out and obviously feel comfortable and confident within its walls.

The manageable size also makes it easier to deliver unusually consistent performance.  And I think that this consistency and the hotel’s special intimacy are what make it a deserved number 1 on TripAdvisor.

Location-wise, Knightsbridge is one of London’s upscale neighbourhoods and very close to Harrod’s, so it is perfect for shopping trips. You’ll come back to the hotel bar with your pile of shopping bags to be greeted by one of Antonio’s G&Ts or martinis!

Rajul Chande writes about London hotels on his blog, LondonHotelsInsight.com

Josiah’s update 30 July 2009: At the time of the article’s writing, the Egerton House was #1 in London. TripAdvisor rankings change weekly, and the hotel is now at position #3. However, the two hotels that overtook it are sister properties under the same management – which makes this article’s lessons still very important.

As we’ve covered in the past few weeks, the vast majority of internet users now expect companies to have a presence in social media.  There are a number of popular social networks in the travel industry, and since most travelers use the internet for trip planning, it’s important that you have a good reputation there.

How can you encourage positive reviews of your hotel in social media websites?

1. At check in, encourage your visitors to register at Yelp.com or TripAdvisor if they haven’t already, so they can discover some of the best local attractions.  Ask them to review your hotel once they’ve signed up.
2. Ask guests to review your hotel online at the end of all guest satisfaction surveys you distribute.
3. When you receive a positive survey response, thank the guest by email, and send a link to tripadvisor.com with a request to rate your hotel there.
4. When guests compliment you on your facility, thank them and say you would really appreciate if they would review you online.
5. Customize a special landing page on your hotel network, so the first web page guests see when they connect to the internet contains links to review sites.  Here’s a very basic sample page:

It all comes down to understanding the importance social media reviews play in a potential guest’s decision making process. So whether you ask a guest to review your hotel, or encourage travel bloggers to write about you, your goal is to take advantage of every opportunity to expand your web presence and improve your online reputation.