BEST PRACTICES TO MAINTAIN A HIGH HOTEL EVALUATION RATE ON REVIEW SITES

8/10/2019 BEST PRACTICES TO MAINTAIN A HIGH HOTEL EVALUATION RATE ON REVIEW SITES

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BEST PRACTICES TO MAINTAIN A HIGH HOTEL

EVALUATION RATE ON REVIEW SITES

ANALYTIC STUDY APPLIED TO:FIVE STARE HOTEL ON TRIP ADVISOR

Magdy Abdel Aleem Mayouf

Lecturer, Faculty of Tourism

and Hotels, Fayoum University

[email protected]

Nabeel Ali Ahmed Badran

Lecturer, Faculty of Tourism and

Hotels, Fayoum University

[email protected]

Hisham Ezat Saad

Lecturer, Faculty of Tourism and

Hotels, Fayoum University

[email protected]
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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ABSTRACT

It has been reported in many cases that Word of Mouth (WoM) is very effective

marketing tool. In hotel industry, most customers choose hotels based on

recommendation of a friend, it (word of mouth) is one of the important factors inhotel selection decision. This effect is magnified for e-WOM, where the impact of

online dissemination of opinion is more and far- reaching and more rapid.

Trip advisor is the authority site used by travelers to read real information, tips,

advices, and opinions. It provides information on cities, attractions, hotels,

restaurants supplemented with contributions from real travellers, much of

researches has focused on the impact of review sites Polarity. It is clear that

positive reviews are good and negative reviews are bad, but the picture is more

complicated, asYe, Law et al. (2009)shows how a 10% improvement in reviewsrating can increase sales figures by 4.4%. That raises in mind an important

question howcan hotel maintain good review rating in review sites?

Keywords:

Review Sites, Trip-advisor, Hotel review,


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INTRIDUCTION

One of the greatest impacts of information technology is the impact of the internet

on tourism and travel. That great impact refers to the availability of a huge amount

of information about travel destinations and accommodation options (Fernandez-Barcala, Gonzalez-Diaz et al. 2010), some of this online information comes from

official sources such as tourist offices and service providers, but the most

interesting information is often to be found in social media.

Social media websites do not just provide information; they allow users to interact

with a business and with one another. This interaction can be as simple as

comments left on a blog or product recommendations based on ratings from people

with similar interests. It is the new electronic wave of Word-of-mouth which has

been recognized as one of the most influential communication channel since thebeginning of society, especially for experience goods (Duan, Gu et al. 2008).

Conventional interpersonal word-of-mouth communication is only effective within

limited social contact boundaries, and the influence diminishes quickly over time

and distance (Ellison and Fudenberg 1995). The advances of information

technology have exceeded the traditional limitations of word-of mouth. Consumers

can now easily and freely access information and exchange opinions on

companies, products, and services on an unprecedented scale in real time (Duan,

Gu et al. 2008).

All tourism businesses need to implement strategies and tools to incorporate these

new technologies (Smyth, Wu et al. 2010), Online social travel networking

reshaped the way tourists plan their trips. These websites allow users to interact

and provide reviews on hotels or on local tourist attractions. Some examples of

these websites are TravBuddy.com, Travellerspoint, WAYN, Woophy,

Passportstamp, and TripAdvisor.com. The latter is probably the largest travel

community on the Web (Miguns, Baggio et al. 2008).

The subject of this paper aims to find the best practices that enable hotels to

maintain good review rating in review sites. The researcher used a technique like

the gap analysis to identify the practices that are applicable by Hotels and

Accepted by travellers. The study limited to five stare Hotels in Cairo and to the

users of trip-advisor.


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REVIEWE OF LETRUTURE

What is trip-advisor?

Trip-Advisor is a website based on the idea that travelers rely on other travelers

reviews to plan their trips, or at least can be satisfactorily helped in their decisions

by them. Most information posted on trip-advisor is autonomously generated by its

users. They post reviews, comments and ratings on a destination, a hotel, an

attraction or any other tourism related object or service. Furthermore, it is

possible to add multimedia elements (photos and videos) or travel maps of

previous trips or take part in discussion forums (Miguns, Baggio et al. 2008).

Why trip-advisor?

It has long been recognized in hospitality industry that it is greatly influenced byword-of-mouth. This impact is magnified for eWOM as it is more rapid and far-

reaching (Calveras and Orfila 2009; Fernandez-Barcala, Gonzalez-Diaz et al.

2010).

Trip-Advisor branded sites make up the largest travel community in the world,

with more than 260 million unique monthly visitors, and over 125 million reviews

and opinions covering more than 3.1 million accommodations, restaurants, and

attractions. These sites operate in 34 countries worldwide (tripadvisor.com 2013).

Review ratings have a great impact on hotel sales as 10% improvement in

reviewers' rating can increase sales figures by 4.4%. and a 10% increase in review

variance can decrease sales by 2.8%.

Social media sites are prominent parts in travel search results. And tripadvisor.com

is the most prominent site in this regard(Xiang and Gretzel 2010). Meaning that

search engines link travelers directly to social media sites (specially trip-advisor),

and thus increasing the impact of these sites.

Customer Reviews Impact in Hotel Industry.

The social media impact in tourism and travel was the subject of extensive

research. Interesting findings have been reported, For instance, Vermeulen and

Seegers (2009)argued that online reviews have a bigger impact on smaller, less-


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known hotels, while Calveras and Orfila (2009)assured that online reviews have

less impact on larger hotel chains, where the brand reputation had to be preserved.

A lot of researches focused on the impact of the review type (positive or negative).

For instance,Ye, Law et al. (2009)present a quantitative analysis that shows how a10% improvement in reviewers' rating can increase sales figures by 4.4%. They

also show that the variance in reviewers' ratings has a negative impact on sales (a

10% increase in review variance can decrease sales by 2.8%). (Clemons and Gao

2008)argue that many customers are interested in identifying a reasonably priced

hotel that meets the minimum level of quality they needs. For these customers,

strongly negative reviews will have a bigger impact than strongly positive reviews.

This is because the negative review suggests that the quality threshold will not be

met.

Other researches were interesting in examining management responses posted on

hotel reviews. Trip-advisor give hotel managers a right-of-reply on reviewsSmyth,

Wu et al. (2010) considered these management responses as an evidence that

management is aware of their reputation on trip-advisor. Recent studies find that

the right-of-reply facility was very little used. It was used by just one of 71 hotels

in the Scottish study (Briggs, Sutherland et al. 2007) and just two of the 500

reviews in the London study (OConnor 2008). But there were a significant

increase in the use of management responses during the period covered bySmyth,Wu et al. (2010)as they find that a 10% of reviews were receiving management

responses. This increasing interest in using the management response facility

should not be surprising as Ye, Gu et al. (2008) show in an analysis of online

Chinese travel agencies that management responses have a significant positive

impact on online bookings.

Motives for Writing Reviews.

Because of the conceptual closeness of traditional word of mouth (WOM)

communication and the electronic word of mouth (eWOM) generated on social

media specially review sites, consumer motives that have been identified in the

literature as being relevant for traditional WOM also can be expected to be of

relevance for eWOM.


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The most prominent study of WOM communication motives is byDichter (1966),

who identified four main motivational categories of positive WOM

communication: product-involvement, self-involvement, other-involvement, and

message-involvement. Miniard (1993) modified Dichters typology, renaming the

categories and introducing an additional motive dissonance reduction which theysee as a reason for articulating negative WOM communication only (Engel and

Roger 1993).

The most comprehensive study on motives for WOM communication was by

Sundaram, Mitra et al. (1998). they identified eight motives for consumer WOM

communication, Four of the identified motives explain positive WOM

communication ( altruism, product involvement, self-enhancement, and helping the

company) while the other four motives give reasons for negative WOM

communication ( altruism, anxiety reduction, vengeance, and advice seeking).

Motives

explain

positive WOM

communication

Altruism. The act of doing something for others withoutanticipating any reward in return.

Product involvement. Personal interest in the product, excitement resulting

from product ownership and product use.

Self-enhancement. Enhancing images among other consumers byprojecting themselves as intelligent shoppers.

Helping the company.Desire to help the company.

Motives

explain

negative WOM

communication

Altruism. To prevent others from experiencing the problems theyhad encountered.

Anxiety reduction.

Easing anger, anxiety, and frustration.

Vengeance. To retaliate against the company associated with anegative consumption experience.

Advice seeking.Obtaining advice on how to resolve problems.

Table 1: Motives explain Positive and Negative (WOM) according to Sundaram, Mitra et al.

(1998).


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Many researches aimed to identify the motives explain eWOM, in general we can

say that Most of the arguments relating to conventional WOM also relate to

eWOM


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RESEARCH METHEDOLOGY

In this research paper, because there is a little literature related to the practices that

enable hotels to maintain a high level of customer evaluation rate on review sites,

the researcher decided to implement the field study of this research in three phases.

The first phase begins with reviewing the literature to identify the motives explain

the positive reviews and the motives explain the negative reviews.

Figure 1: Research Methodology

Review of literature

Motives to writePositive Reviews

Motives to writeNegative Reviews

Practices to increase positive Reviews & Practices to decrease

ne ative reviews

Hotel E-Commerce manager

to assure that it is applicable

Hotel Guests

to assure that it is acceptable

Applicable & acceptable practice to increase positive reviews

and decease negative reviews.

Reviewing Positive ReviewsLatest 50 review in each hotel

included in the research sample

Reviewing Negative ReviewsLatest 50 review in each hotel

included in the research sample

Survey

Compare Means using SPSS


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In the second phase the researcher reviewed the latest 50 review in each hotel

included in the research sample and classifying them according to the motives

identified just to identify the practices that support each of these motives.

The third phase is assigned to conducting a survey a five degree likers scaleindicates the level of agreement on the practices identified in the second phase

the survey form was distributed on two categories of respondents, the first category

was the hotels e-commerce managers to assure that these practices is applicable.

The second category was hotels customers, to assure that these practices are

acceptable.

A compare mean analysis was used to identify the differences between the level of

agreement of these two categories, also an independent sample (t) test was used to

assure the significant of the differences. It is a technique like the gap analysis theresearcher used just to be sure that the practices which will be recommended to

hoteliers by this research are applicable and acceptable.

SAMPLING.

As the aim of this research paper is to recommend the best practices that enable

hotels to maintain a high rate in review sites, the hotels included in this research

sample have specific characteristics, it must be:

The best hotels Five Star Hotels.

Have an account on trip-advisor.

Have a high Customer evaluation rate (at least 50%).

So the researcher used a purposive Sampling have the previous conditions, which

revealed the following 20 hotel.

No

Hotel Name

Rating

Reviews

1- Kempinski Nile Hotel Cairo 95 392

2- Fairmont Cairo, Nile City 92 497

3- Four Seasons Hotel Cairo at Nile Plaza 94 413

4- Sofitel Cairo El Gezirah 89 646

5- Conrad Cairo 86 539

6- Fairmont Towers Heliopolis 88 259
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g294201-d1597516-Reviews-Kempinski_Nile_Hotel_Cairo-Cairo_Cairo_Governorate.htmlhttp://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g294201-d302720-Reviews-Conrad_Cairo-Cairo_Cairo_Governorate.htmlhttp://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g294201-d302720-Reviews-Conrad_Cairo-Cairo_Cairo_Governorate.htmlhttp://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g294201-d1597516-Reviews-Kempinski_Nile_Hotel_Cairo-Cairo_Cairo_Governorate.htmlhttp://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g294201-d1597516-Reviews-Kempinski_Nile_Hotel_Cairo-Cairo_Cairo_Governorate.html


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7- InterContinental Citystars Cairo 86 475

8- JW Marriott Hotel Cairo 84 406

9- Ramses Hilton 77 808

10- Cairo Marriott Hotel & Omar Khayyam Casino 86 982

11- InterContinental Cairo Semiramis 83 548

12-

Dusit Thani LakeView Cairo

84

196

13- Grand Nile Tower 81 304

14- Concorde El Salam Hotel 82 268

15- Fairmont Heliopolis 73 232

16- Le Meridien Heliopolis 66 212

17- Sonesta Hotel, Tower & Casino Cairo 54 241

18- Sofitel Cairo Maadi Towers 57 139

19- Radisson Blu Hotel, Cairo Heliopolis 75 326

20- Pyramisa Cairo Hotel and Casino 59 247

Table 2 : Sample

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Figure 2 : The main practices affects customer reviews

5.00

3.50

4.83

3.83

3.33

4.83

4.78

4.33

4.44

4.11

4.00

4.78

0.00 1.00 2.00 3.00 4.00 5.00 6.00

provide Remarkable Experiences

Exceeded Expectations

Have the right staff

Offer the guest options of review sites

Ask the guest for a review

Reply of guest reviews

Guest Hotelleir


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Figure 3: Practices to provide customers with remarkable Experience

Figure 4: Practices to avoid Exceeded expectation

4.33

4.00

4.00

4.33

4.11

4.33

4.11

4.67

3.60 3.80 4.00 4.20 4.40 4.60 4.80

Having wondeful views and interior

decoration

Having creative features and amenieies

Having advanced IT systems and

solutions

Having recreational facilities and

programs

Guest Hotelleir

4.83

4.67

3.67

4.78

3.22

3.11

0.00 1.00 2.00 3.00 4.00 5.00 6.00

do not tell unreal words

follow a policy of under promising and

over delivering

Avoid super reviews

Guest Hotelleir


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Table 3 : T test for practices that affects the exceeded expectations

Figure 5 : Hotel staff characteristics

4.67

4.67

4.67

4.83

3.83

4.78

4.44

4.56

4.22

3.78

0.00 1.00 2.00 3.00 4.00 5.00 6.00

Receives guests with a smile

always be prepared to serve guests in a

friendly way

Skilled in doing their jobs

Doing their jobs in an artistic manner

talented and have hobbies could be

used in entertaining guests

Guest Hotelleir


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Figure 6: Review site Options

4.17

4.00

4.50

3.67

2.17

2.17

2.33

2.00

1.56

4.11

4.78

1.22

1.00

1.22

1.22

1.22

0.00 1.00 2.00 3.00 4.00 5.00 6.00

Booking.com

Expedia

Trip-advisor

Hotel.com

Hotel clicks

Agoda

Venera

Others

Guest Hotelleir


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Table 4 : T test for the review sites options


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Figure 7 : When to ask for a review

Table 5 : T test for the time to ask for a review

2.67

4.17

3.67

4.17

2.22

2.89

4.33

3.89

0.00 1.00 2.00 3.00 4.00 5.00

During the check-out process.

In follow-up e-mails

When Someone says something

positive

In response to comment cards

Guest Hotelleir


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Figure 8 : Replies in case of a positive review?

Table 6 : T test of replies in case of positive reviews

1.00

4.67

4.00

2.50

3.83

1.33

4.22

1.89

3.89

4.22

0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00 3.50 4.00 4.50 5.00

Do not reply of poditive reviews

Thanks the guest.

Ask the guest to write his Opinion on another

review site.

Offer incentives

Invite the guest to visit the hotel again

Guest Hotelleir


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Figure 9 : Replies in case of negative reviews

RECOMMENDATIONS

The study revealed that following guidelines to be considered by Hoteliers when

dealing with review sites specially trip-advisor.

1)

Provide the hotel customers with remarkable Experience which could be : Recreational facilities and programs.

Fascinating views and interior decoration.

Creative amenities and facilities.

Advanced IT solutions.

2)

Avoid customer exceeded expectation:

Never tell unreal words in you marketing campaign.

Be careful of unreal super-reviews.

Follow a policy of under promising and over delivering.

3)

Recruits the right people and encouraging them to do their best , place a strong

emphasis on the following characteristics:

Skilled in doing his job.

Doing his job in an artistic way.

1.17

4.17

4.83

2.67

1.67

1.00

4.33

4.89

2.11

1.00

0.00 1.00 2.00 3.00 4.00 5.00 6.00

Do not reply of negative reviews

Say sorry of service failure.

Tell the guest about recovery action the hotel

will do

Give reasons for service failure

Try to convince the guest that it

Guest Hotelleir


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Always be prepared to serve customer in a friendly way.

Receive guests with a smile.

Talented and can participate in guest entertainment programs.

4)

Ask the guest for a review, its preferable to ask for a review only at: When someone says something positive.

In response to comment cards.

5)

Avoid limiting your request to just one review site, Offer options of review sites

which must include:

Trip-advisor.

Expedia.

6)

Do not forget to reply to all reviews negative and positive, the following are

recommended guidelines to be used:

When you get a positive review, thanks the guest and invites him to visit the

hotel again.

When you get a negative review, Say sorry of service failure and Tell the

guest about recovery action the hotel will do.


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REFERENCES

Briggs, S., J. Sutherland, et al. (2007). "Are hotels serving quality? An exploratory study of service quality

in the Scottish hotel sector." Tourism Management 28(4): 1006-1019.

Calveras, A. and F. Orfila (2009). Intermediaries and quality uncertainty: evidence from the hotel

industry. Second Conference of The International Association for Tourism Economics, http://ssrn.

com/abstract.

Clemons, E. K. and G. G. Gao (2008). "Consumer informedness and diverse consumer purchasing

behaviors: Traditional mass-market, trading down, and trading out into the long tail." Electronic

Commerce Research and Applications 7(1): 3-17.

Dichter, E. (1966). "{How word-of-mouth advertising works}." Harvard Business Review 44(6): 147-160.

Duan, W., B. Gu, et al. (2008). "Do online reviews matter?An empirical investigation of panel data."

Decision Support Systems 45(4): 1007-1016.

Ellison, G. and D. Fudenberg (1995). "Word-of-mouth communication and social learning." The Quarterly

Journal of Economics 110(1): 93-125.

Engel, J. F. and D. Roger (1993). Blackwell, and Paul W. Miniard (1993), Consumer Behavior, Fort Worth,

TX: The Dryden Press.

Fernandez-Barcala, M., M. Gonzalez-Diaz, et al. (2010). "Hotel quality appraisal on the Internet: a market

for lemons?" Tourism Economics 16(2): 345-360.

Miguns, J., R. Baggio, et al. (2008). "Social media and tourism destinations: TripAdvisor case study."

Advances in Tourism Research(Aveiro).

OConnor, P. (2008). User-generated content and travel: A case study on Tripadvisor. com. Information

and communication technologies in tourism 2008, Springer: 47-58.

Smyth, P. C. B., G. Wu, et al. (2010). Does tripadvisor makes hotels better, Technical Report.

Sundaram, D. S., K. Mitra, et al. (1998). "Word-of-Mouth Communications: A Motivational Analysis."

Advances in consumer research 25(1).
http://ssrn/http://ssrn/http://ssrn/


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tripadvisor.com (2013). "Fact Sheet." 2013, from http://www.tripadvisor.com/PressCenter-c4-

Fact_Sheet.html.

Vermeulen, I. E. and D. Seegers (2009). "Tried and tested: The impact of online hotel reviews on

consumer consideration." Tourism Management 30(1): 123-127.

Xiang, Z. and U. Gretzel (2010). "Role of social media in online travel information search." Tourism

Management 31(2): 179-188.

Ye, Q., B. Gu, et al. (2008). "Measuring the value of managerial responses to online reviews-A natural

experiment of two online travel agencies."

Ye, Q., R. Law, et al. (2009). "The impact of online user reviews on hotel room sales." International

Journal of Hospitality Management 28(1): 180-182.
http://www.tripadvisor.com/PressCenter-c4-Fact_Sheet.htmlhttp://www.tripadvisor.com/PressCenter-c4-Fact_Sheet.htmlhttp://www.tripadvisor.com/PressCenter-c4-Fact_Sheet.htmlhttp://www.tripadvisor.com/PressCenter-c4-Fact_Sheet.htmlhttp://www.tripadvisor.com/PressCenter-c4-Fact_Sheet.html

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