Comprehensive Analysis: Online Review Impact on Accommodation Sector

This report meticulously examines the profound impact of online reviews on the accommodation sector, focusing primarily on hotels. It highlights how online reviews have become a critical factor in shaping a hotel's reputation and influencing customer booking decisions. The report emphasizes the significance of review sites like TripAdvisor and OTAs, illustrating their role in providing potential guests with crucial information. It discusses the consequences of both positive and negative reviews, the influence of social media platforms, and the importance of staff in maintaining a positive customer experience. The report also explores the Global Review Index (GRI) and its use in measuring guest satisfaction, and provides recommendations for hotels to increase revenue by leveraging online reviews. The analysis includes the benefits of reviews, the importance of star ratings, and the significance of encouraging guests to leave reviews. Furthermore, it references both academic and non-academic sources, providing a comprehensive overview of the topic and offering practical strategies for hotels to manage their online presence and enhance their business performance. The report concludes with actionable recommendations to increase revenue using platforms like TripAdvisor.

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Effects of online review on client in accommodation sector
Online business reviews have become important aspects of any business growth and
development. Online reviews have become very important than many people in the hotel and
accommodation industry may assume. Online reviews have basically become the driving
force in affecting an accommodation or a hotel reputation in the industry. Tourists and
patrons in hotels have become aware that a accommodation is better if it is rated highly.
There are hundreds of review sites that have specialized in the review of hotels and major
accommodation places. Review sites like Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) for example
vacationers and Expedia and Trip advisor have created a niche for their clients to get
information on various accommodation sites.
While booking, most of the vacationers are mostly relying on the sites reviews to
place bookings for accommodations. In some research, it has been shown that vacationers are
relying on hotel reviews sites rather than advertising and marketing form major
accommodation and hotels. It is not surprising that more than 97.7% of consumers regularly
read online business reviews on accommodation from travelers and this has raised the
attention in the surge of online review sites and OTAs (Birinci, Berezina, and Cobanoglu,
2018).
There is a good chance that hotel and accommodation places have well-maintained
websites that are supported by SEO techniques. In this case, a traveler or guest searches for
the hotel details on search engines and the website appears on top of search results. If the
accommodation or hotel does not have a well maintained website, or in the absence of a
website, the defining power becomes the online review sites. Online engines such as Google,
assign top priority to content by online reviews magazines and OTAs when it comes to

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results search. The top search result for the accommodation is mostly pleasant or negative
depending on the guest review.
There are various consequences for both positive and negative review (Casalo, et al,
2015). The reputation of the accommodation is safe if the online review is a positive one.
However, if the review is negative, the result is a tarnished image or impression in the eyes of
a guest who would potentially have wanted to spend a night or day there. If the first review is
negative and is very conspicuous from an unhappy customer, the hotel may have reputational
damage. In this case, a guest may choose the competitor over the accommodation that is
negatively reviewed. The ratings are from a single star to five star in most online review
ratings. If a hotel has five star ratings, most likely it offers quality accommodation and
services. The ratings can impact a business either positively or negatively (Chung, et al,
2016).
Social media also impact the reviews of accommodations and hotels. Social media
channels like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have become influential in online
reviews. Most of the hotels have opened social media accounts that are run professionally as
this is the new age corporate strategy. Hoteliers are staying directly connected to their clients
and replying to their comments. A negative comment will only show a hotel in bad light
while very positive comments and reviews only attracts more customers to the hotel.
Reputation is a collective image of a company. And this has its advantages and
disadvantages. The main thing in this matter is “their people”. It is important that all staff:
from the back office to the reception, work for a common goal - to make the guest happy, and
his rest - comfortable. Reservation department staff will select the best room according to
guest preferences, the administrator will meet them at the reception with a sincere smile, and

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the manager will thank you for choosing their hotel and will do everything to exceed the
expectations of vacationers (Deale, and Crawford, 2018).
Not uniform standards
No matter how management is spelled out, the hotel business is built on a human
factor. And some standards and regulations cannot do. There is always the possibility of an
exceptional situation. At such moments, the hotel’s reputation for strength is checked - how
the staff responded to the guest’s additional requests, what the hotel’s employee did, if the
guest had any trouble, would he help him find tickets for vacationers and more.
Impact of accommodation sector on the current environment
The GRI indicator was developed by scientists and hotel companies with the goal of
providing a tool for assessing the level of guest satisfaction for a comparative competitive
analysis individual hotels, hotel groups, networks, and hotel brands. In the interests of
research data online reputation indicators GRI hotels were compared with information about
the pricing of hotels received research company STR, in order to understand the process of
making customer solutions.
The impact of online reviews and social media in the hotel industry has now reached
an unprecedented level. Hotel management recognized the value of online reviews and social
media as a key source of information about customer opinions and a tool for achieving
market excellence. Despite this, many companies in the hospitality industry have not yet
decided which method of measuring the return on investment in social media and managing
reputation is the best. Managers and hotel owners can now evaluate the growth in profits
caused by the increase in guest satisfaction using the Global Review Index.

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For hotels and accomodation, reputation is profit
Experienced hotel business professionals know how to use guest reviews from social
networks and customer profiles to increase the efficiency of the hotel. Our set of web tools
facilitates the process of monitoring, analyzing, managing and developing your hotel’s online
reputation across hundreds of sources in order to increase guest satisfaction and increase
profits.
Importance of accommodation sector
Online reviews play an important role in the customer decision making process when
choosing a restaurant or bar. As more restaurant enthusiasts search for information and new
places online, and book online tables, a strong positive online reputation is having an
increasing impact on the potential profit of a restaurant or bar. According to a recent study,
increasing the online rating by half the star leads to an increase of 30% - 49% of the
likelihood that the restaurant will be completely full during the restaurant hour-peak.
However, given so many social networks and review sites, managing online reputation is a
difficult and time-consuming task. Optimization of the heart rate of room rates, hotel
occupancy and RevPAR index by comparing information about your pricing system and
online reputation with similar information about your direct competitors (Liang, Schuckert,
Law, and Chen, 2017).
A comparative competitive analysis of the customer satisfaction index compared to
your direct competitors both at the level of individual hotels and at the brand level as a whole
using the Global Review Index and other types of operational analysis aimed at developing
specific actions to solve problems.

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Monitoring, interacting and feedback with discussions and social media comments about your
hotel or brand.
The reviews left on TripAdvisor attract not only tourists, but also industrial business
professionals. Today TripAdvisor is a key marketing tool, sometimes even affecting the
reputation of hotel owners, because the site already contains more than 170 million reviews
and opinions from people directly related to travel. Similar messages are posted by tourists
from all over the world, and 100 new reviews are added every minute. TripAdvisor is the
most famous and popular travel site to date. The hotel reviews posted on it directly affect
both the brand's reputation and its loading, and new research once again proves this. At stake
are revenues, length of stay for visitors and room rates.
Benefits of reviews
Stars are important: there is a certain relationship between the number of stars and the income
received from one's work.
A room in a five-star hotel and on TripAdvisor will have more requests than a room in a
three-star hotel.
Significance of reviews: the more reviews, the more money the hotel receives per deal. A
large number of positive reviews increases the flow of customers accordingly.
You should not focus only on rating or stars, although their total number is also important -
encourage visitors to leave as many reviews as possible.
The hotel rating is not always equal to a larger source of income: on the TripAdvisor site, the
hotel rating itself rarely affects profit. If the client is looking for a link between the site and
the source of income - this does not prove their relationship. The developers of the site do not

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disclose the algorithm of their calculations to anyone, so it is very difficult to determine how
the rating of a hotel improves or worsens. But this cannot be proved.
The results of the study clearly illustrated the importance of having positive reviews and a
high rating, as well as the significance of the opinions of TripAdvisor users when choosing a
hotel.
Recommendations and conclusion
Recommendations that will help to significantly increase revenue using this TripAdvisor are
banal, but effective.
1. Ask visitors to write a review for your hotel: the more reviews the hotel has, the higher the
income.
2. Use special offers: attract tourists to make an order only through your website. When
people search your site, special offers significantly expand the possibilities, making your
hotel a more visible object for other users, so they will already evaluate the brand itself
(Zhang et al, 2019).

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References
Birinci, H., Berezina, K. and Cobanoglu, C., 2018. Comparing customer perceptions of hotel
and peer-to-peer accommodation advantages and disadvantages. International Journal of
Contemporary Hospitality Management, 30(2), pp.1190-1210.
Casalo, L.V., Flavian, C., Guinaliu, M. and Ekinci, Y., 2015. Do online hotel rating schemes
influence booking behaviors?. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 49, pp.28-
36.
Chung, H.C., Lee, H., Koo, C. and Chung, N., 2016. Examining the Impacts of Cues on
Online Review Usefulness: Heuristic-Systematic Model Perspective. 80, pp.998-999.
Deale, C.S. and Crawford, A., 2018. Providers’ perceptions of the online community
marketplace for lodging accommodations. Tourism and Hospitality Research, 18(4), pp.470-
477.
Liang, S., Schuckert, M., Law, R. and Chen, C.C., 2017. Be a “Superhost”: The importance
of badge systems for peer-to-peer rental accommodations. Tourism management, 60, pp.454-
465.
Zhang, G., Cui, R., Cheng, M., Zhang, Q. and Li, Z., 2019. A comparison of key attributes
between peer-to-peer accommodations and hotels using online reviews. Current Issues in
Tourism, pp.1-8.
Non-Academic references
https://blog.grade.us/7-email-templates-requesting-online-reviews/
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-s1-g499085-d1197386-Reviews-Com_Hotel-
Albena_Dobrich_Province.html