hospitalitytoday.com | 11
Video: The Corinthia Hotel on
the value of guest feedback
UK consumers state that reading other
people’s reviews plays an important role in
helping them decide where to visit or stay.
This rises to 70% amongst 25-34 year olds.
Millennials are also significantly more
likely to cite online customer reviews as
being very important in determining which
hospitality and leisure services to use.
Close to a third (29%) of 18-24s and (27%)
of 25-44s rated online reviews as one of the
three most important factors influencing
their decision on where to stay – alongside
more traditional factors such as value for
money and customer service, as opposed
to 18% of the over 65s.
In addition, nearly half (45%) of all British
consumers are more likely to leave a
review today than just 18 months ago,
citing factors such as ease of access
through smartphones (42%) or awareness
of the importance of reviews (33%).
This means that businesses need to put
processes in place to avoid being left
behind by customer expectations over time.
Businesses see the value of
feedback
A majority (82%) of the hospitality
industry say that feedback has been
beneficial for their business and two
thirds (68%) think it has been beneficial
for the sector as a whole.
Businesses also believe that feedback is
leading to more trade - 57% are able to
explicitly credit online customer feedback
with increasing trade, reporting an
average 12% improvement in customer
numbers over the past 18 months.
Businesses are deriving a range of
benefits from online feedback such
as more repeat business (63%) or the
identification of issues within the
business (61%). However, the majority
(63%) of businesses are not currently
managing feedback in the long term or
maintaining records in a formal Customer
Relationship Management system.
Moreover, two thirds of the hospitality
and leisure industry (66%) expect the
importance of online feedback websites
to increase over the next 18 months.