Please complete the following two questions based on the case "Never Stay Here! The Power of Negative Online Reviews" provided at the end of chapter 11. Here are the questions that you should answer:

1. How comfortable should consumers be in letting the reviews of others influence where and how they travel? What are the pros and cons?

2. What steps do you recommend a hotel take when dealing with a negative online review? (Remember to answer questions based on evidence from the case and detail the evidence).

Case:

If you book a hotel for your next vacation, you will likely view

ratings from online opinion leader TripAdvisor. As the worlds

largest travel site, TripAdvisor has integrated their review

system with over 500 major travel partners including online

booking site Kayak and leading hotel chains Wyndham, Best

Western, and Four Seasons. According to Tom Vanderbilt, the

site has over 200 million reviews of hotels, restaurants, and

attractions in 45 countries890,000 of the reviews are for

hotels and 115 comments are added every minute.

How important are online reviews? Vanderbilt reflected on

the curious power of TripAdvisor whose reviews seem to demonstrate

the abiding urge to share and the faith that sharing will

make someone elses experience, or quite possibly everyones experience,

that much better. He also cites a Cornell University study

done by the Center for Hospitality Research that points out that it

was 2010 when social media really took over the travel industry.

This was the first year in which guest experience mentioned in

customer reviews became the factor that surveyed consumers

reported had most influenced their hotel choice. TripAdvisor has

now introduced Facebook integration, so that consumers can see

what their Facebook friends have said in their TripAdvisor reviews

before other unconnected consumers comments.

Boston-based Cone Communications research revealed

that 89 percent of consumers say they find online channels

to be trustworthy sources for product and service reviews. In

addition, Cones research showed that four out of five consumers

have changed their minds about a recommended purchase

based solely on negative information they found online.

Since online reviews are important, the challenge to marketers

is how to manage the reviews, especially the dreaded negative

reviews. Everyone knows all reviews cannot be positive, but there

are ones that strike a chord of fear for hospitality companies: bed

bugs, dirty sheets, discourteous front desk staff, and so on. The

question for every hotel is how do we respond to negative reviews?

There are several options for handling negative reviews.

Obviously, the first option is to do nothing at all, and many

hotels go this route. The small hotel owner is incredibly busy, so

following and responding to online reviews may fall low on his

or her list of daily priorities. Perhaps these owners are not social

media savvy or they are unaware of social media monitoring

tools that will make tracking and responding to comments

easier. Some of the more sophisticated monitoring tools are

expensive, beginning at $800 a month.

Still, most marketers agree that listening and responding

to negative reviews is the best strategy. Vanderbilt was told by

the head of TripAdvisors global product division that hotel

owners now think of TripAdvisor as a marketing platform and

even a form of focus group, embracing the feedback, even if its

negative. He mentions a recent TripAdvisor study that found

owners who are willing to respond to online comments are more

likely to get booking inquiries.

Several hotel chains, including Red Roof Inns, require local

managers to respond to every negative online review. The

responses themselves can be tricky; what do you say? Its clear

that the overall goal of the response is to satisfy the reviewer and

to change the public perception of your property. If the reviewer

appears incorrect, how can the hotel politely attempt to correct

the information without insulting the reviewer or creating an

online argument?

If a reviewer has a truly bad experience, many hotels consider

the guest deserving of a discount or free night at the hotel.

But hotels must be careful not to publicly promote this reward or

less ethical reviewers might intentionally write bad reviews in

the hopes of getting free nights at the hotel.

TripAdvisor has features to help hotels with some of

these obstacles. The hotel can send a private message via the

TripAdvisor message system offering a coupon to the customer.

If the hotel feels a review is incorrect, there is an opportunity to

report the review as inappropriate to TripAdvisor in the hopes

of removal or correction.

Some businesses have gone more extreme in their reactions to

negative reviews. There are a few reports of hotels fining their customers

as much as $500 for a bad review. The customer is warned

in the fine print of the contract and hotels are deducting the fee

from the credit card used at check-in. Some small businesses have

even sued customers for defamation in their online reviews.

Online reviews are important for business survival and

revenue growth. One study revealed that a one-star increase in

a Yelp rating can lead to as much as a nine percent increase in

revenue. Another Cornell University study found that for every

increased point in reputation rating (TripAdvisors 1-5 scale),

hotels can increase prices by 11 percent and not lose business.

In the competitive world of hotel marketing, its clear that

social media marketing and visitor review sites will continue to

influence travelers decisions and must be taken seriously.