One of the most revolutionary trends happening in hotel technology right now is the use of social media data and customer review analytics in optimizing distribution and maximizing revenue growth.
For many of the hotel companies we work with – from small boutique collections to the world's largest brands – this is the missing piece in the social ROI puzzle.
I've written before how CEOs of hotel brands around the world are recognizing the link between guest satisfaction and financial performance. We've also seen study after study reveal the role of online reviews in the consumer's buying process. While these benefits are very real and must not be ignored, in this article I want to briefly cover three of the ways hoteliers are using review analytics to proactively drive measurable revenue growth: Revenue strategy #1: Maximizing pricing The big idea: Consumers are willing to pay more – 38% more, according to comScore – for hotels with online reviews that indicate superior service. How hotels are using this to make more money: Hotel revenue managers are analyzing the Global Review IndexTM for hotels in their portfolio, comparing it with the hotels' competitor sets to identify opportunity for price increases. If a hotel has a much higher reputation in its competitor set of similarly-priced hotels, that hotel's rate can often be raised without losing occupancy. One of our clients tried this on a small scale at first. With a few of their properties, they tested raising rates $5/night on several channels where they had very strong online reputations. There was no reduction in the booking volume. So they raised rates $5 more. Still, there was no damage to overall occupancy. After trying a third price increase, they began noticing a decline in overall bookings, so they kept the $10/night price premium in place, and attributed the additional revenue to the insight obtained through reputation benchmarking.
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