Hotels - Information Exchange Benefits Hoteliers and Holidaymakers
We’ve all had the same experience at one time or another: you’ve decided on your well-deserved holiday, selected the destination and have diligently researched all the hotels in the area. After reading their websites, sifting your way through mounds of positive comments and concluding that you are sufficiently impressed, you go ahead and book.
Days, week and months pass until the day you’re winging your way towards holiday bliss. Only, when you finally arrive, sweaty, exhausted and lugging your bulging suitcases with you, you discover your holiday paradise is not quite what it seems. Your beautiful sea view is obscured by building works - perhaps the white, sandy beach is strewn with rubbish. Or maybe, if you’re really unlucky, you end up with a room with a broken air conditioner, a blocked toilet or even - worst of all - cockroaches. While you’re probably not going to end up with a disaster such as the one shown in this video*, such an experience can end up ruining your holiday.
Clearly, this is undesirable for both holidaymaker and hotelier, but how can you avoid it and what can hotels do to improve their services?
The web has certainly evolved a number of ingenious ways for travelers to investigate hotels in advance without wading through biased material, as well as giving hoteliers an unique opportunity to respond to negative feedback and improve their services. The first, and most-accessible, option is user-based review sites. These sites allow users to leave either basic or expanded reviews on hotels. Additionally, hotels can respond to criticism that they feel is undeserved or simply use the reviews as a guideline to improve their services, which is of benefit to both hoteliers and their guests. While most sites have teams devoted to weeding out biased or false reviews, the best advice for holidaymakers is, however, to remain cautious when faced with gushing praise or really damning reviews.
Another resource, which has recently been receiving more attention is Twitter. While many people use Twitter simply as a means to stay in contact with friends and family, there are also groups and profiles dedicated to local travel knowledge, hotel reviews and traveling tips, which can be of great use to prospective holidaymakers. This is a little more work-intensive perhaps, but once you have built-up a personal network, it will do the work for you. It may also be worth simply tweeting your question and seeing whether someone can offer advice: for example, ‘Has anyone stayed at Hotel Incredible in Colarado?’ While this is not a fool-proof solution, it can be very helpful.
Twitter is also becoming a useful tool for hoteliers themselves to advise their key selling-points and also as a means for personal contact between the company and potential or previous customers. While some hotels simply use Twitter to advertise offers, many will respond quickly to queries and complaints, which can make a huge difference to the impression the hotel makes on the holidaymaker.
Finally, although you may need to take a trip to your local library, travel guides remain a great resource. Guides such as Lonely Planet consistently come out top for supplying tourists with detailed information about destinations without an outside commercial agenda. If you borrow or purchase one detailed guide, it should see you through many happy holidays.
Kathryn Castle is an online marketing expert for HolidayCheck, with a particular interest in travel and hotel reviews. She has recently visited Vienna, Budapest, Bratislava and Konstanz and her writing has been published in several UK publications, including Aesthetica Magazine, which has UK-wide circulation.
http://www.holidaycheck.co.uk
http://www.holidaycheck.com
Kathryn_Castle
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