THE POWER OF GUEST REVIEWS Presented by: Michael Menzel

24 November 2015

Hello! I am Michael Menzel Thank you for inviting me to TMI 2015.

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0. WHO WE ARE

and what we do

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“ First they ignore you,

then they laugh at you, then they fight you,

then you win.

Mahatma Gandhi

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DATABASE

SEMANTIC ENGINE

CRAWLING

SURVEY

MATCHING

API

Monitoring

Survey

Mobile App

Meta-Reviews

Technology Platform Overview

Monitoring

Mobile App

Based on 70+ man years of research, cooperation with Munich University (LMU) 27+ languages // 400,000+ concepts per language categorized in 120 main categories (room, location, food, pool ) 95% precision, 80% recall

Combination of machine learning + linguistic systems + user feedback (3000 inputs / month)

Technology Platform Overview

1. IMPACT OF REVIEWS

Let’s start with the first set of slides

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Online Success = Reputation x Price x Availability x Marketing

If one factor = 0, success = 0 too

Magic Formula Online Tourism

Reviews And UGC Rank As The Most Important Factor In Making Booking Decisions

72% business travelers

69% leisure travelers

Rate reviews and consumer opinions posted online as extremely/very important in their booking decisions

Travelers Are Willing To Pay More For Hotels With Higher Review Scores

Travelers are 3.9 times more likely to choose a hotel with higher review scores when the prices are the same.

When hotel prices are increased for hotels with better review scores, travelers are more likely to book the hotel with the higher score even when it costs more.

76% of travelers were willing to pay more for a hotel with higher review scores, when asked explicitly.

3.9x

76%

Review Data Has A Significant Impact On Travelers’ Booking Decisions

95%

is spent reading a hotel’s reviews prior to booking.

are read, on average by leisure travelers.

7 Reviews 30 Min of travelers read reviews prior to booking a hotel.

Summarized review content: •  is easier to consume than full-

text reviews

•  gives travelers the most useful overview of a hotel compared to full text reviews

•  is more mobile friendly

•  travelers prefer a combination of the two to feel most confident in making a booking decision

Travelers Want A Quick Way To Make Their Booking Decisions

72% of respondents are saying that the summarized review content was mobile-friendly

40% of respondents are saying the same for full text reviews

61% prefer to see only a review summary during their mobile bookings

Summarized Review Content Is The Most Mobile-friendly

Influence presence and review scores on other sites like Kayak, Google, Wego, trivago and hundreds more

More quality engagement and more conversions

Summarized Review Content Makes Travelers Feel More Confident In Their Purchase Decision

Make the research process more

traveler-friendly

Increase direct bookings and boost

SEO

Give travelers a summary on the true highs and lows of a

property

Survey Reviews Have Significantly Higher Scores Than Reviews From Other Sources

Surveys = More Reviews

Hotels using YourHotel surveys have significantly more reviews, and the search engines eat this up. In search world dominated by OTAs, this can make the difference in whether a hotel appears for its own brand.

More Reviews = Better Search Engine Rankings

The volume of reviews influences the level of trust a traveler has in the feedback. The difference between a hotel that has 300 reviews and a hotel that has 3,000 reviews is noticeable unless scores are the highest of the high.

More Reviews = Increased Confidence with Travelers

YourHotel surveys should easily integrate with your website and can be pushed out to third-party travel sites like Google to help drive higher rankings exactly where you need them.

Improved Presence

On review sites, the traveler controls the conversation

Your Surveys = Guiding the Conversation

Influence the way travelers recall their experiences and how they respond

In a survey scenario, the hotel guides the conversation.

Millions of people use Google every day to look for products, services, or information

Paid search Organic search

Earned content

Owned content

Curated content

Traveler reviews

User generated content

Ad Clicks

Ad impressions Ad CTR

Ad Avg. CPC

Ad Avg. Position

70% of the links search users click on are organic

70-80% of users ignore the paid ads, focusing on the organic results

75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results

The higher you rank, the more people click on your website

On the first page alone, the first 5 results account for 67.60% of all the clicks and the results from 6 to 10 account for only 3.73%

How can you improve SEO for a better presence?

Reviews are fresh, unique content for search engines. They account for 19,8% of your overall ranking factors

Reviews 9.8%

Source: Moz.com Overall Ranking Factors

Listings that had at least 3+ star reviews took 87% of clicks

Reviews perform well on mobile, too

61% of clicks went to listings that had at least 4 reviews

Source: Thinkwithgoogle.com

2. GET REAL

A/B Testing Impact Of Reviews

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3. WHAT TO DO

Quality, Quality, Quality

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IMPLEMENT QUALITY

ASSURANCE PROGRAMS

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MAKE THE VOICE OF THE GUEST YOUR PARADIGM

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PROPERTIES THAT USE QUALITY ASSURANCE

INSTRUMENTS HAVE SIGNIFICANTLY

BETTER SCORES

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The higher the Q-Label, the higher the Score

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ESTABLISH KEY PERFORMANCE

INDICATORS AND MEASURE QUALITY

OF PROPERTIES

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KNOW YOUR DESTINATION VALUES/

BRAND VALUES

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EDUCATE PROPERTIES (THAT DO NOT MEET THE

EXPECTATIONS OF YOUR DESTINATION/

BRAND)

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EXCLUDE PROPERTIES THAT DO NOT MEET THE

EXPECTATIONS OF YOUR DESTINATION/

BRAND

4. BEST PRACTICE

Serfaus – Fiss – Ladis

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“ A journey of a thousand miles

begins with a single step.

Lao-tzu

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Thanks!

You can find me at: michael@trustyou.net

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more info: www.trustyou.com