Digital Reputation Outlook 2013 – What does it mean for your business?

Digital reputation or as well the buzz word ‘online reputation’ proofs to have more and more impact on today’s hospitality business.

Let´s be honest – when has been the last time we booked a hotel room or reserved a table in a restaurant during vacation or a business trip without reading the reviews before? Right, we all do that. Now, as most of us are part of the industry we could assume this is typical for us, but if you start asking your family, friends or other guests in the hotels and restaurants the feedback is always the same: „I looked it up on Tripadvisor.“ or „My friend posted such nice photos of the site on Facebook; I had to come and see myself“.

Ok, so we are aware of the impact of digital reputation….where´s the news? Well, that is one of the topics currently discussed in the entire industry: How can hotels and restaurants use that knowledge to their advantage?

Here comes the story

Recent studies such as the one conducted by Chris Anderson Ph.D. from reknown Cornell University on the impact of digital reputation driving hotel sales show the increasing importance of not only managing social media comments and reviews on a continuous basis. Equal importance lies in using such information and studies to increase average daily rates (ADR) and by that overall revenue. Here the link to the study: The Impact of Social Media on Lodging Performance

During the course of the last weeks we spoke to several industry experts from consulting companies and software providers within the hospitality industry on their respective outlook for their own business in 2013 and what means digital reputation for their hotel customers based on their experience in the last years.

Below a quick summary of some exemplary elevator pitch charactered interviews we held with Daniel Krisch from h2c GmbH, Dominik Sobotka from Onmari, Julia Jung from Relexa Hotels and Radka Telyckova from SmartHERO Consulting & dotcomhotel.

Daniel Krisch, Director Client Services h2c GmbH

As Director Client Services Daniel is heavily involved with the strategic advisory for small to mid-sized hotel groups in Europe and the Middle East.

Daniel Z., opensmjle:
Daniel, please tell us a little bit about h2c´s main services and how you see the impact of social media and reviews for the business of your customers in 2013?

Daniel K., h2c.:
Most important we will continue to support our hotel chain customers in shaping the right strategies for OTA, Brand Website in line with effective Online Marketing and Managing the Reputation Online. There are different aspects to be considered such as aligning systems and processes and also finding the right partners to have the desired output and ROI. The focus for many hotel chains herein lies on OTAs, as there is still significant market potential in different source markets. Since reviews are deeply linked to OTAs, Online Review Channels and Metasearchers it’s important to understand the impact and how to manage these portals. Now when it comes to digital reputation this plays an important role in the overall concept. As a known fact, people are talking about the individual property or a branded hotel group without them necessarily being aware of that or interacting. Now, having the audience communicating about the brand in the different networks first of all is great, but this part of the digital reputation needs to be managed using the right people, processes, tools as well as policies and standards implemented to be able to respond to reviews and comments in the right way.

Dominik Sobotka, Founder & CEO of onmari.com

With onmari.com Dominik delivers all disciplines in online marketing regarding customers needs and fit focused on (long term) return on investment.

Daniel, opensmjle:
With your many years of experience in hospitality and online marketing, what is important within digital reputation in 2013?

Dominik, Onmari:
Digital reputation 2013 means particular in hospitality management to keep in touch with your customers needs and how you compete with your competitors in value-for-money. And that´s what it´s all about – even more in 2013 than before. If you listen and talk to your customers via the web adapting your product and pricing based on these insights you will be on top of the market. If you don´t – your business will disappear sooner or later.

Julia Jung, Onlinemarketing at relexa hotels GmbH

Julia shows responsible for managing the onlinemarketing presence for relexa hotels GmbH including Social Media, analytics, monitoring, Newslettermarketing, On- and Offpage SEO, SEO, crossmedia campaigns and Online PR. Having worked within online marketing agencies herself in the past Julia has the right experience to coach the 10 member hotels of the group to strengthen the overall online media presence.

Daniel, opensmjle:
From the perspective of a hotel business, how do you see the importance of digital reputation for hotel organisations in 2013?

 Julia, Relexa Hotels:

Digital reputation in 2013 will be about understanding your customer‘s needs for a better desire and emotion orientated communication. We have to filter the real meaning of reviews and Social Media to discover emotions and needs between the lines of what they are saying and writing as a chance to offer them the most convenient and suitable products and services. The aim is to engage with our guests using the right (=felicitous, accurate, appealing) words and pictures on all the channels relexa hotels can be found in order to win the right customers (= those, who will be happy with our product as they get what they expect and has been communicated). This means, we should “use” the customer’s voice way more than just listening and answering.

Radka Telyckova, Founder of SmartHERO Consulting and initiator of the dotcomHOTEL.eu conference

Radka consults hotels and hotel groups within Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland on how to optimize their revenue managements strategies, their overall online presence and best practices for social media. Furthermore she initiated the dotcomHOTEL.eu conference for Eastern European markets bringing together global consulting and software providers with the local markets.

Daniel, opensmjle:
Radka, please share some news with us on the next events you will host.

Radka, dotcomHOTEL:
The next bigger events will be hosted in Budapest end of May followed by events in Prague and Warsaw in October 2013 covering the topics E-Commerce, Revenue Management and Social Media Handling with many workshops and top speakers. Again many interesting providers will be present to share insights on the latest developments and best practices within the hospitality market with a dedication for the respective markets.

Daniel, opensmjle:
What about digital reputation? Is this a big topic for your markets?

Radka, dotcomHOTEL:
In our region the situation probably is a bit different compared to the bigger markets such as UK, Germany or even the US. Our customers need to focus more on basic things first. They know this has growing importance internationally, but our local markets still have fewer reviews and comments from international guests and specifically outside of the bigger cities such as Prague, Bratislava or Warsaw the hotels still lack on the experience and internal experts on how to use this to their advantage. That is why we need to educate them constantly and help them grow their business by these new innovative segments.

Thank you again to Julia, Radka, Daniel, Dominik and the further experts we met during the last weeks for your feedback.

Image source for the prisma: Ethority

Digital Reputation Outlook 2013 – What does it mean for your business?

Digital reputation or as well the buzz word ‘online reputation’ proofs to have more and more impact on today’s hospitality business.

Here comes the story

Daniel Krisch, Director Client Services h2c GmbH

Dominik Sobotka, Founder & CEO of onmari.com

Julia Jung, Onlinemarketing at relexa hotels GmbH

Radka Telyckova, Founder of SmartHERO Consulting and initiator of the dotcomHOTEL.eu conference

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