Want to get some hard numbers as to how influential a hotel's reputation can be to the bottom line? Well, here you go.
A one-point increase in a hotel’s 100-point Global Review IndexTM (GRI), for example, leads up to a 0.89% increase in price (ADR), a 0.54% increase in occupancy, and a 1.42% increase in revenue per available room (RevPAR).
This seminal study, by Chris Anderson at Cornell University's Center for Hospitality Research, based on more than 31,000 monthly observations over 2.5 years on mid-scale, up-scale, and luxury hotels in 11 cities in the North America and Europe, used review data from ReviewPro and reporting from STR to quantify the impact of online reputation on rates, occupancy, and RevPAR.
According to Anderson:
"What was remarkable about the study is that positive online reputation doesn’t merely provide higher pricing power for online sales. It is correlated to higher group booking rates and corporate negotiated rates in addition to reservations made over the phone."
The industry has needed this research for a long time. While hoteliers instinctively understand that happy guests are key to success, until now they've only had anecdotal data from OTAs that quantified the difference guest satisfaction makes on sales.
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Reputation drives revenue – but now what?
The basic conclusion of this research is intuitive. But the exhaustive scope of this study provides hotel executives with the confidence they need to invest in providing their guests with better service.
A few practical steps to act on these findings:
1. Track your reputation against others
This is especially important to do in relation to your competitive set – which are the places your potential guests check while they’re shopping.
Note when satisfaction drops or surges, dig deeper to understand the forces driving those trends, and then make changes based on what you learn.
2. Invest in experience design and better service
But hold those investments accountable for making a difference in guest satisfaction and revenue growth.
Semantic analysis of online feedback for a property can reveal opportunities for targeted improvements that make the biggest, fastest impact on guest satisfaction. Doing this for a competitive set will help build a stronger unique value proposition for that hotel.
3. Create reputation goals for your team
Thousands of hotel managers and executives in organizations we work with at ReviewPro have part of their bonus compensation tied to reaching guest satisfaction goals.
Since the financial success of a hotel is linked to its online reputation, this is a smart way to align objectives with daily actions.
NB:Download the full report from the Cornell Center for Hospitality Research. And ReviewPro's take.
NB2:Hotel bell cash image via Shutterstock.