An upcoming report will say hotels are looking at online reputation management as their key investment area in 2015.
The latest TripBarometer report from TripAdvisor, captured from data via a survey of thousands of hotels around the world, found that ensuring how a property's online presence is managed is likely to receive the most injection of financial support this year, with online reviews considered the most important area of a business.
The importance of the discipline has increased significantly since 2014, the report says.
Investment in online reputation management by hotels is expected to increase by 60% this year compared to the previous 12 months.
This is the largest increase by hotels across a number of investment areas.
Coming behind online reputation management in the five biggest increases in investment by hotels, is likely to be:
- Small scale renovations - 53%
- Marketing/advertising - 51%
- Traffic acquisition (SEO/SEM) - 50%
- Staff training - 47%
Those hoping for a massive and wholesale investment in hotel broadband provision and in-room IT will be disappointed, with increases in investment expected to come in at 46% and 35% respectively.
The other leading areas of a business considered the most important for hotels include:
- Increasing repeat business
- Increasing direct bookings
- Diversification of offering
- Mobile marketing
- Providing IT amenities in rooms
The overall "business optimism" of hotels looks broadly positive for the coming year.
Almost three-quarters (73%) of hotels are optimistic about their profitability during 2015, with only 7% stating they are pessimistic.
This compares to 70% and 67% for 2014 and 2013 respectively for optimism and 9% and 10% for the same perdios on the pessimistic front.
The figures were previewed by TripAdvisor's vice president of industry marketing, Heather Leisman, during a talk for the PhoCusWright sessions at ITB in Berlin last week.