poll

What are Most Trusted Sources for Hotel Reviews and Ratings?

by RobertKCole on September 9, 2011

Hotel reviews and ratings are a hot topic of discussion and it’s getting hotter. Recent PhoCusWright research finds 43% of travelers are influenced by social media and that two-thirds of hotel reviews are submitted on Online Travel Agency sites, with the remaining 34% posted on travel review sites. However, various groups are also accusing TripAdvisor of not doing enough to identify and eradicate phony hotel reviews.

Five-star Hotel Plaque
Creative Commons License photo credit: jcberk

Hotel ratings and reviews are an invaluable resource for travelers, but with no industry standards and a black-hat element of the industry transitioning from Online Reputation Management (ORM) to Fake Review Optimization (FRO) can they be trusted?

All of the action isn’t necessarily taking place online. Earlier this year, Forrester Research found 29% of leisure travelers would work with a traditional agent, if they could find a good one. That statistic is sharply up from 23% in 2008.

To make matters worse, there are no global standards for hotel ratings, subjecting the prospective hotel guest to a litany of rating scales, often graded by vague, inconsistent, and frequently contradictory measures.

Regardless, the stakes have now been raised dramatically. User generated reviews now factor into search engine results, so enterprising Search Engine Optimization specialists, perhaps recently thwarted by Google’s Panda updates to its search algorithm, have now turned their sites on exploiting the system by doctoring user reviews to enhance search engine rankings.

Some intrepid pioneers brazenly promote their ability to bury negative reviews with positive ones originating from 10,000+ IP addresses and thousands of email addresses. Not surprisingly, there is no mention of these reviews originating from actual guests, a blatant violation of US Federal Trade Commission official guidelines governing endorsements and testimonials. Similar rules prohibit such black-hat practices throughout Europe and elsewhere.

Google itself is also making waves in the review space as it solidifies its local strategy surrounding its Places pages – already a hotbed of activity with hotel price ads pitting hotels against online travel agencies, this time using context sensitive inventory and pricing as the weapons of choice. Simultaneously, with Google’s launch of Google Plus, the decision to require individuals to identify themselves only by using real names adds an additional method to structurally inhibit illegitimate reviews from anonymous sources.

Perhaps Google’s most bold move is its purchase of Zagat, and its highly curated, yet crowd-sourced review platform. With Google internalizing a respected review platform, undoubtedly with an idea of expanding it dramatically, it gets much closer to the deep content that drives customer engagement, validation and relevance. This is particularly important when leveraging semantic search technologies capable of introducing much needed context into travel search processes.

Who Do You Trust?

So, where do travelers look for recommendations regarding their lodging choices? The burning question is more importantly, whose advice do they truly trust and act on when making a hotel reservation?

Considering the fact that I interact with a large number of sophisticated travelers, I prepared a brief 1-page survey to find out whose hotel reviews and ratings the travel cognoscenti trust. The resulting 34 potential sources are roughly divided into three categories – types of individuals, prominent hotel review sites and general categories of sites hosting reviews.

The survey has been designed with a single question and should take only a couple minutes to complete.

Please Scroll Down to rate more sources of Hotel Ratings and Reviews.

Thank you for taking the time to complete the survey. I am expecting to see some surprising results.

Tagged as: customer relationship management, Google, hospitality, hotel, insight, marketing, online travel companies, poll, reviews, search, social media, statistics, travel, travel agency

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Survey: What Hotel Brand Does the Best Job Online?

by RobertKCole on May 5, 2011

Performing an admittedly unscientific survey in preparation for a session I will be moderating at the Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals HITEC Conference June 20-23 in Austin, Texas. Hopefully you can provide some opinions on the topic.

Every hotel and/or hotel chain on the planet is striving to capture more traffic on their website and convert that traffic into hotel guests. The burning question is however: What hotel companies are doing a great job online?

To provide a bit more structure to a highly subjective topic, the seven-step travel process will be employed. Those stages are:

  • Inspiration
  • Research
  • Planning
  • Validation
  • Booking
  • Travel
  • Sharing

So please take a few minutes to complete the survey below. Weigh in on who you think is doing an exceptional job of engaging their guests in each phase of the travel process.

Ideally, use the hotel brand’s Twitter handle in each response – that will make it easier to collate the responses and communicate the results. If you don’t know the hotel’s name on Twitter, just use the brand name. And yes, I am asking for your Twitter ID to sign the survey in an effort to eliminate stuffing of the ballot box (Would hoteliers do that…?) If you’re not on Twitter, please use your e-mail address.

Here is the survey: continue reading →

Tagged as: HFTP, hospitality, hotel, poll, survey, website

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Hotel Industry Survey – How to Align Business and Technology Priorities?

by RobertKCole on April 13, 2011

One of the most pressing issues facing the global hotel industry as it slowly recovers from the biggest economic downturn in its history is how to most efficiently bridge the gap between business and technology goals.

Survey Interview
Creative Commons License photo credit: keiichi.I

Make your opinion known. Contribute your insights to a hotel industry white paper focused on best practices to close the gap between business and IT objectives

With plummeting occupancy and depressed rate levels, the hotel industry radically cut spending, reduced headcount and deferred projects to survive the great recession. Now, with demand returning and some signs that rate increases are beginning to hold, many hotel group business leaders are betting that technology will help them maintain operational efficiencies and keep costs low as business volumes return to scale.

The challenge for hotel industry information technology executives is that in many cases, funding and staffing resources may be locked in at these reduced levels. Pressures are reportedly intense for technology teams to work smarter, faster and to be more productive when addressing the increased business demands.

The subject of the white paper is Bridging Hotel Industry Business & Technology Priorities. As opposed to providing generic platitudes and hypotheticals, the specific focus is specific plans of action over the next 36 months.

The objective is not to create a document that solely speaks for the hotel information technology community, but something that also provides perspectives from hotel marketing and operations leaders.

Excellent feedback has already been received from a number of leading hospitality industry Chief Information Officers, Chief Marketing Officers and Chief Operating Officers. The next step is to gain insights from those fighting on the front lines of the battle – hotel owners & investors, hotel management companies and property level management.

This is where you come in – Please take the survey and weigh in on the most pressing business challenges facing the hospitality industry, the top priorities for hotel IT groups, and most importantly, how can the gaps between these two areas be bridged over the next 36 months? continue reading →

Tagged as: hospitality, hotel, insight, marketing, poll, recession, strategy, survey, technology

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Casting ‘The Social Network’ – What Character Are You?

by RobertKCole on October 4, 2010

Both The Social Network, the movie, and its subject, Facebook, join the ranks of iconic films that document events epitomizing a decade’s cultural changes.

Similar films in this rare genre, dramatizations based on seminal events, include:

However, the most interesting aspect of The Social Network is that it not only profiles a social force shaping the millennial generation, but also expertly documents the universal strains faced by many startups.

Leaders, followers, pretenders, traitors, muses and investors – they are all players that frequently march in the startup parade – particularly organizations that stick around long enough to survive the process.

So this poll question is simple – if you had been involved in chaos of starting up Facebook, what role would you have played? There is an excellent chance that there is a character in the mix that aligns well with your sensibilities and motivations.

The Social Network Poll Notes:

  1. Erica Albright is a fictionalized name, but if you click on her name, you will link to the famed Mark Zuckerberg document that calls Jessica Alona a bitch
  2. Christy Ling is also a fictionalized character – clicking on her name will link to an unanswered Quora query wheter she represents Jenny Wu – feel free to reply and solve the mystery
  3. Marilyn Delpy completes the trio of fictionalized women – the character was not mentioned in The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal, the book by Ben Mezrich that served as the basis for the movie
  4. In the photo of Chris Hughes, actor Patrick Mapel is on the far right
  5. The photo of Peter Thiel is the real Peter Thiel. No publicity photos have been released of the scene featuring actor Wallace Langham

While people may be capable of playing many roles, only one answer is permitted, so what role would fit you best or most closely suit your personality?

Answer honestly – it will be interesting to see how many people perceive themselves a Zuckerberg, Saverin, Winklevoss or Ling.

Tagged as: facebook, inspiration, poll, social media, startups, technology

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Is a Facebook Like Button Click for Website Access Evil?

by RobertKCole on July 24, 2010

Facebook’s Social Graph is a unique and powerful resource – and companies want to leverage it. A Like on Facebook provides an endorsement that can evangelize a product to new groups of followers and opens new channels of communication if they follow suit and like the product as well.

Angel or Devil?
Creative Commons License photo credit: Stephen Poff

Please say you like me, then you'll find out why... No need to hesitate... Why don't you trust me? Just click that Like button.

Born on sleepy Vashon Island, Washington 45 years ago, K2 Ski Company has always been at the forefront of brand marketing innovation and engagement with its customers. Even 40 years ago, they were painting barns, issuing collectible employee trading cards and sponsoring Dick Barrymore directed films at the dawn of freestyle.

Much more recently, in a bold effort to engage its website users with Facebook, which some may prefer to call “Like-bait”, K2 temporarily shut down its website and provided one navigation option – to its Facebook page. The main attraction is an exclusive preview of K2′s new 2010 ski line on Facebook.

But here’s the catch, to access the preview, one must click the Facebook Like button and become a fan first.

So here is the question, is it ethical to make the “Like” button part of the site navigation? Or, is pretty much anything OK as the user can opt-out of clicking Like and skip the content, or click Like, view the content, and then click Unlike to return to the status quo?

Try this link if you do not see the poll embedded above. continue reading →

Tagged as: customer relationship management, facebook, marketing, poll

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Improving The Amazing Race with Experienced Travelers

by RobertKCole on May 23, 2010

Travel reality show The Amazing Race recently wrapped its 16th edition. The critically acclaimed show (a personal favorite) involves two person teams unpredictably traversing the world following clues and performing various localized challenges to win a million dollar prize. Unfortunately, there is one fundamental problem with the show…

Watching inexperienced travelers grapple with unfamiliar foreign customs may appeal to a broad demographic of aspiring world travelers, but for those of us involved in the travel industry, the fish-out-of-water scenarios only go so far.

For a truly amazing race, I say pit teams of insanely experienced world travel experts against each other to see who comes out on top. Eliminate the naiveté and suddenly the sophistication of the clues, complexity of the challenges and destinations visited can be elevated to an entirely new level.

After a round of nominations, the teams have been assembled. There is an incredibly wide variety of travel experience and industry expertise possessed by the team members. The teams range from famed CEO’s to nomadic travel bloggers and highly regarded industry analysts to award winning journalists. Some teams reflect current working relationships, for others, only a shared commonality within an industry niche. All are accomplished travelers in their own right – one could do worse than traveling with any one of them.

Please note that the direct input of the individuals comprising the teams was not taken into consideration when defining the teams. There is a chance that particular individuals may not be able to stand the other member in their pairing. Hypothetically, for some, the $1 million prize might take precedence over petty differences. As for those that might encounter difficulty finding common ground, there is always the benefit of entertaining television.

So, the question is: Who would be the ultimate two-person team to race around the world for a $1 million dollar prize?

Try this link if you do not see the poll embedded above. continue reading →

Tagged as: amazing race, poll, travel, twitter

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Nominate Uber-Travelers for Amazing Race Dream Team

May 9, 2010

The Amazing Race Dream Team would be the ultimate two-person team to beat in a race around the world for a $1 million dollar prize. Nominations are being taken for a Twitter poll to discover who the Twitterverse believes would be the toughest competition. Who are the ideal candidates to compete in The Amazing Race? Travel writers, road warriors, travel industry executives, travel agents, tour guides? It will be interesting to see who gets nominated, and who ultimately wins.

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What Event Could Have the Greatest Influence on the Future of Travel?

April 30, 2010

This poll is designed to identify the news story from the past week that has the greatest potential to shape the future of the travel industry. Complicating the voting are some stories that are not based on fact at this point, but reflect unsubstantiated ideas or concepts. Some stories involve increasing the market share of leading organizations through mergers or acquisitions; others technological advances that could shift the balance of power between various players within the industry. The results will indicate the “Inflularity” of the event that voters feel create the greatest impact. The question for this week’s RockCheetah poll is “What Event Could Have the Greatest Influence on the Future of Travel?”

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What is the World’s Best Luxury Hotel Brand?

April 23, 2010

This poll is designed to identify the best luxury hotel in the world. The best hotel chain is not measured solely by the beauty of its views from suite balconies, the thread-count of its sheets, or the price of its rooms. The secret sauce for these properties comes down to service – the magical ability to anticipate guest needs and provide personal service in an efficient, yet understated manner. The results will indicate the “Luxularity” of the luxury hotel brand that voters feel provide the best overall experience. The question for this week’s RockCheetah poll is “What is the World’s Best Luxury Hotel Brand?”

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What Las Vegas Casino Hotel Does Social Media Best?

April 16, 2010

This poll is designed to evaluate the most popular casino hotel in Las Vegas when it comes to social media. The results will indicate the “Socularity” of the Las Vegas casino hotel that those surveyed feel engages their community most effectively through social media. The question for this week’s RockCheetah poll is “What Las Vegas Casino Hotel Does Social Media Best?”

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