Get Ahead of The Competition: Make Your Hotel The Top Choice Online!
The choice of guests when booking a hotel online is closely tied to their fear of being misled. A study conducted by researchers from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University revealed that this can be explained by the concept of "perceived risk”, which refers to the level of uncertainty that customers believe they face when making a purchasing decision and which influences the degree to which they question it. This concept is particularly relevant in the context of online hotel bookings, where guests rely on information like reviews, images, and descriptions to make their decision. In effect, it means that if prospective guests have doubts about what they are seeing online, they will quickly increase their level of perceived risk in order to reduce the possibility of wasting money on an unsatisfactory experience. As a result, guests will no longer be looking for reasons to book your hotel, but rather reasons not to, which will naturally lead them to compare your hotel even more carefully with others online. Then, if your competitors appear more desirable, you will start to lose bookings, as guests will be relieved to have found a hotel they believe in more. However, by focusing on improving key online assets and ensuring they fulfill guest expectations, you can minimize doubts and captivate your guests from the start, thereby becoming the top choice over competitors. Here are three crucial actions to take:
1. Boosting visuals quality
Online booking decisions mainly depend on visuals, as these are the first things that catch attention and offer a concrete preview of the hotel. These visuals take various forms, such as videos, images and drawings, and can be found on your website, on search engines, on social media, and so on. However, creating these visuals, often entrusted to professional photographers or videographers, can be costly and time-consuming. As a result, hotels sometimes neglect to carefully assess the quality of the content once it has been produced, which can have a detrimental effect on bookings. Ultimately, any poor quality visuals can diminish the overall impression of your hotel, thereby increasing perceived risk and encouraging potential guests to choose your competitors instead. Therefore, the first step in becoming the top choice for potential guests is to evaluate the content produced and be prepared to replace it if it does not effectively promote your hotel due to issues such as poor angles or overall quality. In the medium and long term, the additional investment is less costly than leaving the damaging visuals in place.
2. Cultivating a strong identity
While attractive visuals are important, they are not enough to outperform your competition online. It is just as essential to ensure that these visuals and the rest of your online content are harmonious in order to establish a strong hotel identity. Indeed, potential guests subconsciously assess the consistency of what you present to determine whether it matches their desire. Without a clearly defined identity, your content will not resonate, leaving guests confused and increasing their perceived risk. A practical way to assess your content consistency is to visit your Instagram page and go through the 12 most recent posts. Then, see if they blend seamlessly together through similar colors, tone and style, or if they are disjointed, as if different people have posted them each time. In the latter case, here are two essential steps you can take. Firstly, you can create a detailed content charter which is a comprehensive document describing everything you need to do to ensure that your content unequivocally reflects your identity. Make it actionable by creating a checklist for content managers to follow, ensuring greater consistency in the future. In a second time, review and remove online content misaligned with your identity as much as you can. Any inconsistency that is left behind can increase the perceived risk of guests and direct them to your competitors. By following these steps, you can establish a strong, consistent online identity that sets you apart from the competition and resonates with your prospective guests, making your hotel the top choice.
3. Optimizing online ratings
The most relevant guidance for guests often comes from other guests themselves because there is nothing quite like hearing from those who have already been through the experience. Even if a hotel has highly attractive visuals and a strong identity, low ratings in guest reviews, especially when lower than competitors, can increase perceived risk. That is why it is crucial not to stay passive regarding these reviews but instead actively seek to maximize their positivity. If you have many negative reviews, one of the first step you can take is to carefully read them, as they often provide valuable feedback that can help in enhancing your offering. Concentrating on addressing the relevant issues before anything else is important because trying to generate more reviews without improvements can lead to more similar negative feedback on top of the existing ones. Once improvements have been made where possible, it is time to generate more reviews. The reason for doing it can vary – whether you are trying to recover from negative ratings, increase your credibility because you have a low number of reviews, or maintain your already positive reputation over time – but the approach remains the same. During guest check-out, consider adding a simple step where a small personalized gift, like an engraved wooden sculpture or a framed polaroid picture, is offered, along with a request for a review through a provided QR code. Ensure that this request is made by someone who has taken care of the guests during their stay, as it will strengthen the emotional connection. When guests feel they owe something because the hotel has gone beyond what is expected, they are more likely to reciprocate by writing a positive review. This simple process can have an impact more or less quickly depending on the number of reviews you already have, but in any case it will ultimately result in positive ratings, which will reinforce the confidence of your potential guests.
In summary, it is possible to become the top choice online ahead of your competitors by proactively upgrading your online assets. If you start adopting this approach by boosting your visuals quality, cultivating a strong identity and optimizing your online ratings, you can be sure that many hesitant guests who might otherwise have booked elsewhere will now be convinced to book your hotel.
