The author of the article presents modern Easy Travel 2.0 on-line technologies that hotels can use to improve their image, promote them and expand presence in the Internet. The main points are that the hotels should not only be more active using the Internet and on-line resources to attract more guests and increase sales, but also to involve their guests in this process. So, first of all a hotel should start from reviewing the information it presents in the Internet and decide what else could be submitted or what other resources could be used. For example, hotels can use consumer review web sites and social media to increase presence in the Internet. This enables hoteliers not only to upload information about the hotel (photo, audio, video), but also to monitor customer reviews regularly and give the response. The author concludes that all these provide an opportunity to better introduce a hotel in the Web. Of course, company’s website is an official one, but nowadays potential guests tend to rely on other travelers reviews more than on mainstream marketing and advertising (according to Forester Research reports “more than 50 percent of respondents prefer the option of friends, family members or even complete strangers on the Internet”). Above this, a hotel should make its website visitors be sure with the best rate guarantee and monitor and protect its on-line brand. On the other hand, hotels can use all these on-line tools more efficiently if they involve their customers. If potential guests want to observe travelers reviews before making a decision about a hotel, a hotel itself should gives them this opportunity. All the following methods like setting comment webpage as default page on guests’ in-room computers, creating web pages where guests can recommend or rank hotels facilities, placing comment PCs in lobby area, sending thank-you e-mails to the guests can be used to encourage visitors to say their positive response. The author of the article highlights that it is very important to gather guests’ opinions during their stay in a hotel when the experience is fresh and after it as well. Finally, the author points out that well-built policy regarding using on-line tools and customer involvement can greatly implement to the hotel’s image, development, sales and customer relationships.
In my opinion, this article is a great resource for those who have never heard about Easy Travel 2.0. It provides basic information about on-line tools and what is more important gives the examples of the web sites that hoteliers can use. So, if a hotel is just in the very beginning of the Internet exploration and not well presented in the Web the article provides a lot of ideas and particular website names to start with. I like the ideas presented in this article, but the most exciting one for me is placing comment PCs in the front desk of a hotel. Travelling to different countries I have never seen such technology! I believe that it is really effective, up-to date and important tool. Not all guests fill in the paper response cards in their rooms. Of course, it is not necessary that all the guests will use comment PCs, but I am sure that personal polite invitation from front desk manager to complete guest’s review of the hotel will encourage more visitors to give their response than just a card left by a maid in the room. Even though we are talking about hospitality technology we still must be hospitable using all these tools! Above all, now I am thinking about the international tourism and possibility of using this technology. Working for several years for travel agency in Russia I faced the problem of misunderstanding and disconnection between tourists and hotels. To give an example, nowadays Turkey and Egypt are the most popular travel destinations for Russian tourists. It is obvious, that Russian tourists mostly use Russian search engines in the Internet and read Russian review websites, but Turkish and Egyptian hoteliers undoubtedly will have troubles doing it. That is the problem!..May be one of the possible decisions is to hire Russian managers for this job. Anyway, it is still open to question. To sum it up, one thing I am sure about is that on-line technologies have a great impact on modern hospitality industry and the most important part of online customer relationships is adequate feedback! It must be a communication between the hotel and its guests or potential visitors, not just a hotel on-line presentation or gathering guests’ reviews.
6 comments:
I found Ekaterina's reflection accurate to some extend. I can say that i totally agree with her about the importance of collecting customer comments as this kind of information has been and will always be the basis of analysis, and in return, plays an important role in the development of the property. However, I do not agree with her about the comment PCs. She said that this is very appealing to customers and they are more likely to choose submitting their responses through a computer. According to me, it would be a hassle for the customers if there is a line in front of most probably 1 or 2 comment PCs. And I think that would not look appealing to other customers and would even create problems for the front desk employees. To tackle this problem, I would suggest the traditional forms, which are left on a spot that is easily catching the eye, along with some kind of promotion. It may be a free drink from the bar or maybe a free attraction in the hotel.
Well, obviously a well-done internet-based feedback system is very importing to any industry especially hospitality, about which I totally agree with Ekaterina. Through the network, the owners and managers are able to know what the customers are thinking about their place and service, like what about the environment, what about the room styles, what about the facilities, what about the food, and so forth. While in my opinion, if we just take this system for the information of feedback from customer, it would be a big waste. When I finished this article, I am impressed by the idea that recruit customer into the marketing of the hospitality institution. Because, as we all know, the marketing moves conducted by a producer or a service provider are always consider to be advertisements. But some similar claims from the public, or we can say “a third person”, are much trustable and acceptable to public. So through the network, if we can take advantage of customers’ comments as marketing tools, it would be great. However, coins have two sides. Once customers have some complains of the service, all people will see, which might lead to bad influence. So this system pushes companies to do better.
Thank you very much for comments in my blog!!!
To Kutay: Really, really interesting ideas!
I don’t reject an idea of using traditional forms for collecting customer comments! But if we are speaking about importance of getting feedback from hotel guests and possibility to gather more comments for analysis I believe that combination of paper-based and computer-based surveys will be the best way! Implementing these two options we can broaden guests’ participating. Obviously, no one of these methods couldn’t provide 100% result! Among hotel guests will be those who do like to share their thoughts, experiences and those who don’t like it; those who react to promotion and those who do not; those who are familiar with technology and computers and those who don’t know almost anything about it. In terms of this hotels should provide different possibilities to their guests to get feedback.
Easy Travel 2.0 is an interesting concept that I had not heard much about in the past. The internet is a booming aspect of technology and can certainly be instrumental to hospitality firms. I agree with the author that hoteliers should utilize the internet as a means of attracting more guests. While Ekaterina makes some good suggestions of ways a hotel can receive good feedback from customers, such as, utilizing other websites to promote a brand, sending thank-you e-mails and a guest page for guest to recommend or rank hotel facilities, I disagreed with some of her other points. One main point that I do not agree with is having PCs in a hotel lobby. I feel that this will not be successful because it will cause a crowd in that area of the hotel. I also feel that it would not be successful because guests will unlikely utilize that PC if they have to wait in a line of any sorts in order to use it. Suggestions that I have make related to Easy Travel 2.0 would be: 1. to utilize the On-Demand/interactive function on hotel televisions as a means of getting customers to fill out a questionnaire about their experience. 2. to utilize a phone prompted survey. 3. Earn points on your loyalty card by completing a questionnaire. 4. Hotels could create blogs, which they could use to put up pictures and videos of their hotel, as well as receive feedback from their customers.
This is a very interesting and accurate article. It has become common practice in the hospitality industry to collect customer information (in whatever for it is available) for use in truly analyzing an organization. Ekaterina's suggestion are good, in that they give some interesting ideas for the collection of feedback from customers. While feedback is important, I believe that her idea of using computers as a means of getting that feedback may have its drawbacks. If actual terminals are placed in the establishment for customers to use, in times of high traffic, that may become a hassle. However, if customers are allowed to give their feedback from locations other than those provided and in many different forms such as blogs, websites or social networks, that would raise the response rate significantly.Finally, while getting customer feedback is helpful, it will be useless if the isn't the right technological solution in place to manage those responses. They would become just another collection of random bits of unused information.
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