Impact Of Users Generated Content On Hotel

Understanding and engaging hotel customer In every business, understanding the customers is very crucial for survival. Organizations that have proper understanding of their customers are able to customize their services and product to meet the needs and expectation of the customer. In the hospitality industry, understanding and engaging with customer is not an option but a necessity for survival. Today hospitality sector has become very competitive. There are thousands of options available to customers and as such hotel marketing manager need to ensure they not only understand their customer but also engage them in order to again their royalty and manage reputation (Luck & Lacanster, 2013). Then need for hotel marketing managers to engage with customer has become so real with the spread of internet all over the world. Today customers chose not only to do their booking online but also to share their opinion, feeling and experiences about hotels services with peers through online platform such as social media and review website such as tripadvisor.com. This kind of information is better known as user generated content (UGC) (O'Connor, 2010). UGC is big threat to a hotel but at the same it is big opportunity for them to engage with customers and understand their need. If left unmonitored and unmanaged, user generated content can damaged the online reputation of hotel (O'Connor, 2010; Kaplan & Haenlien, 2010) and as research has shown majority of potential guests use online rating and review to make decision on whether to stay in it a certain hotel or not (Lee, Hyung-park, & Han, 2007). However, if properly managed, user generated content can be a big opportunity for marketing managers to understand and engaged their customers so that they can know which areas of their hotel and services needs improvement (O'Connor, 2010). It is for this reason therefore that the marketing managers of Hydro Majestic blue mountain hotel should not only understand but also engage their customer through online platform such as Tripadvisor.com, twitter, facebook etc. This would not only help in managing and maintaining a good online reputation, but would also provide them an opportunity to know their areas of weakness that need improvement. Eventually, this would lead to continuous quality improvement that meets customer expectation and needs. To engage customer effectively, one of the thing that marketing manager at hydro majestic blue mountain should do is to research and identify online platforms where customers uses to express their feeling. Some of the important platform to look customer feedback include tripadvisor.co.uk, Facebook, twitter among others. Once that is done, they should respond to all the feedback provided whether positive or negative as being made by the users. However, different approaches should be taken when responding to positive and negative feedback. When responding to positive feedback, the marketing managers should be brief. He/she should thank the customers for using their services as well as providing feedback about their services. Equally, they should also invite the customers back to their facility. Finally, the response provided should be be personalised. Customer should be addressed by their name (O'Connor, 2010). In case negative feedbacks have been provided, the marketing manages should never ignore them. They should respond to them professionally. In their response, the marketing manager should express regret for not having met the customer needs and expectation. They should also provide an explanation as to what when long and the measure that has been taken to rectify the issues. They should than invited the customer back to their facility. By doing so, the marketing manager would be giving assurances to potential guests about the quality of their services (O'Connor, 2010). As indicated by research conducted by NYU (2014), management responses to a negative feedback give assurance to almost 76 percent of potential customer. This clearly shows the importance of providing feedback to unhappy guests. Responding to customer feedback should not be enough; the marketing managers should also gather the data, analyses and use them to improve their services and communication with the clients (O'Connor, 2010). The level of participation and impact that UGC is having on the hotel you have identified User generated content has become an essential component to hotel marketing managers. This is because more and more people are turning into social media and websites such as tripadivisor.com to express their feeling, thought and experience about the services they were offered (O'Connor, 2010). According to trip Barometer (2012), 51 percent of travellers worldwide have written an online review about services that were offered to them by the hotels they were accommodated in. More importantly, 91 percent of traveller always looks online for peer review before they make decision on where to stay. According to a recent study, peer online review/use generated content is the single most factors that influence people choices of the hotel to stay (Lee, Hyung-park, & Han, 2007). This is a clear indication that online has become the preferred platform for people to share their feeling and experiences with peer in regard to hospitality services offered to them. For instance, more that 45 million reviews and honest opinions have been shared in tripadvisor.com. Equally, more than 675,000 hotels have been review and rated among them being Hydro Majestic blue mountain Hotel. In one review website (tripadvisor.com), Hydro Majestic blue mountain hotel have received more than 460 reviews both positive and negative. This is clear indication that more people than ever before are involved in generating contents that is accessible and visible by millions of people. It is undeniable that user generated content affect hotels in many way. To begin with, it has huge impact on hotel reputation. USG which usually come in form of review and opinion is always unedited and unfiltered. Again, the hotels have no control over these contents. What that mean is that both positive and negative reviews and opinions are at all time accessible and visible to millions of potential guests. Too much negative review and opinion will definitely have negative impact on hotel reputation. On the other hand, positive review and opinion will increase hotel rating (O'Connor, 2010). Take Hydro majestic hotel for example. In tripadvisor, co.uk, some people have expressed satisfaction with it services. However, a big percent of people who have used it before, have expressed dissatisfaction with the sizes of it rooms. These kinds of reviews will definitely scare away potential guests with bigger family or appetite for bigger rooms. Secondly, user-generated content do have a significant impact on people purchase decision. As revealed by study conducted by Trip barometer (2012), 93 percent of travellers are influenced by online review and opinion when booking hotel. Another study by McGuire (2014), found out that online review sentiment were the single most factor that determine the purchase decision of traveller when compared to other factor such as price, Brand awareness and aggregate rating. This shows that majority of traveller or potential guests Trust the words of their peer more than anything else when it come to making decision about hotel accommodation. For hotel like Hydro majestic Blue Mountain, their reviews in website such as Tripadvisor.com are very crucial in determining the numbers of client they attract in their hotel. Unfortunately, they do not have control over what customers say but they can monitor and responded to such reviews in aim to manages, protect and promote their reputation so as to attract more customers. Thirdly, user generated content do have significant impacts on the revenues of a hotel (Noone, MacGuire, & Rohlfs, 2011). As already mentioned above, UGC do have direct impact on hotel reputation and client purchase decision. This in turn affects the demand for services offered. For instance, if the user generated content is largely positive, it reputation will be good and a lot of people will also be influenced to make their purchase decision in favour of that particular hotel. This translated to huge revenue. On the hand, there is also a correlation between negative reviews and hotel revenues. When too much user generated content talk negatively about a certain hotel, there are high chances that it will run to loss because, as revealed by research, majority of traveller make their hotel booking decision based on user generated content .i.e. reviews and opinions (Cox & Buultjens, 2009; Lee, Hyung-park, & Han, 2007). A different research by NYU (2015) has found out that 73 percent of travellers or potential guest do not mind paying higher price rate when user-generated content talk take positively about a certain hotel. This mean that hotels with good online reputation, stands in a better position to maximize their revenues through higher prices than those with poor reputation. It would be logical to argues that, the revenues made by hydro majestic blue mountain hotel is to greater extent determined by it reviews in social media platform and review website such as tripadvisor.co.uk. Importance of marketing managers to understanding the destination where a hotel is located The destination or location in which a hotel is located is of greater importance when marketing the hotel. In most cases, the hotel may be located in historic site, mountain, town with rich history, near sea or other attractive site and place. As the marketing managers, it is important to have a good understanding of the destination in which the hotel is located. This will help you market the hotel to people who may be interested in what the location itself has to offers ( Newgrove, 2016). For instance according to a recent survey by ( Tripadvisor, 2015) , 46 percent of traveller indicated that they chose a destination due to the culture of local people. Take hydro majestic Blue Mountain for instance, according to the customer review as contained trioadvisor.com, the destination in which the hotel sit has been be describe using wonder such as wonderful historic site, a super mountain view among other similar. Such review has raised credibility and reputation of this place is crucial in attracting guest to the hotel. If the online customer review had a negative message toward the location, it would have scared potential guests from booking the hotel. In additional, traveller prefers to stay in hotel located in destination with good reputation and credibility. As a marketing manager, it important to understand that feedback and review provided through online platforms has the potential of damaging or promoting the reputation of the destination where your hotel is located (Munar, 2011). This would in turn affect the demand for services of the offered by your hotel. Good destination reputation is an important element in attract the guest into hotels while bad destination reputation can scare away potential guests. It is therefore extremely important as marketing managers to have a proper understanding of the location in which you hotel sit. This would help you promote the reputation of destination and also minimizes the damaged that can be caused by negative comment provided by users.