Tried And Tested:. The Impact Of Online Hotel Reviews On

A brand is a powerful tool, especially in the hotel industry where services are intangible. Many hotels of the 21st century have made branding one of their top most priority with the realisation that hotel branding helps to set them apart from their competitors and create a firm customer base. Branding creates brand recognition, brand preference, increase customer satisfaction and most importantly, customer loyalty.

For instance, in the hospitality industry, the Hilton brand symbolises high-end properties, elevated quality of service and a unique guest experience. Brand name and brand image are essentially two factors that differentiate companies which operate in the same industry and market. Therefore, the brand name must be unique. Hotel companies like the Hilton have established strong national brands and seek to use them globally with an intention of increasing profits. Once its established as a global brand, the company has successfully created an international image that can lead to increased efficiency through branded marketing efforts and cost savings on a much larger scale. Nowadays with an increase in international travel, the competition among international hotel corporations is becoming a lot more competetive. Those tourists that travel to foreign countries tend to stay in one of the known hotel brands and their standardised quality of service. Hotel chains are motivated to maintain a high rate of global expansion as a key marketing strategy of creating brand loyalty (King,

to choose and be more satisfied with their choice of hotel over participants from the extensive

In this essay I will be explaining and evaluating the method chosen and used by Pinewood Hotel in order to gain a better insight onto how aspects of their website are rated, and how it compares to their competitors. In addition to this, I will evaluate the findings that were gained from the research method used by the researchers at Pinewood Hotel.

Nations Hotel Corporation is one of the reputed USA based hotel company, with an international presence in 15 countries worldwide. Hospitality industries are quiet competitive in nature and today’s success rule of hospitality includes knowledge, customer satisfaction and operational efficiency which provides pleasure of stay and departure to their guests. Any addition or subtraction in these components can increase or decrease the rating of any organization. Nations Hotel with 98% brand awareness and 72% as customer satisfaction ratio were still far from the race of preferred choice amongst the customers. Hence there, arose a need to

Despite their efforts, leaders in the SEO industry estimate that 10 percent of a site's search engine ranking is determined by online reviews. This is even more important for physical, brick-and-mortar locations and local offices. The search engines want to provide customers with the best information, services and products possible. With this in mind, online reviews are perfect for showing the search engines the quality of the dental office.

The mission of the hotel is to cater to a professional clientele who is likely to increase the revenues of Amber Inn. These kinds of patrons do not worry about price since most of the times they are covered by the Company they work for and they tend to have a prolonged stay. The necessities of those customers are more regular than the individuals that are on a vacation trip; thus, there is no difficulty to find out what do to. For instance, internet services would suffice those on a business trip whereas those on a leisure trip would worry about entertainment such as live music. Some researchers suggested that, the publicity is unnecessary in determining which hotel to choose. Internet can be a primary factor, as a sales element such as hotels.com. I advise excluding or decreasing ad for almost 4.4 million, lowering the

Each year the objective was to increase and attract more occupants which she did for the company. Also, the introduction of internet communications is a big plus for the business traveller using the hotel. We now know how important the internet is to every type of guest these days. Furthermore, location positioning is important and with hotels located on major highways, office complexes, airports and surrounding large shopping centres it is fighting other competitive hotels.

Not only are reviews being used to damage a reputation but also used as black mail. An investigation by the Times had implied that 80% of hoteliers and bed and breakfast owners had complained to TripAdvisor that guests had been using the online review system in an intimidating and black mail way. Guests would demand upgrades or discounts if the business in question did not comply then a bad review would be posted on TripAdvisor. Bha.org.uk,(2011)

• Evaluating all current and future purchasing policies and practices across the brands to ensure that the range of products placed in hotels not only enhance the guest experience but drive value for owners while supporting the company's overall

In Zimbabwe, Harare is an unbeatable destination for hospitality services of all sorts. Hospitality is the harmonious mixture of shelter, food and beverage, the physical environment, the behavior and attitude of people, Pizer (2011). The hospitality services are mostly found in hotels and a hotel is ............. The researcher wants to find out what are the challenges that are faced by the hotels in Harare. The researcher embarks on this study to gain a deeper understanding of the research problem and to hone the research problem solving skills in the area understudy. The researcher carries out this research by desire to understand the challenges that are faced by hotels, and also to determine whether the findings will have the significance in addressing the research problem. Hotels are part of the greatest contributors that contribute towards the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Zimbabwe, Deswell (2007). The hotels are responsible for being hospitable because hospitality is essential in attracting visitors to the establishment such as the star rated hotels. The research is worth doing because it provides a fresh insight about what solutions to implement so as to avoid future operational challenges that will continue to affect the operations of hotels in Harare. The study also sought to identify the challenges that affect the hotel operations in Harare with a view to recommend measures that can

Noone, B. M., & Lee, C. (2011). Hotel Overbooking: The Effect of Overcompensation on Customers’ Reactions t

Lotte Hotel is moving to the growth stage of its business life cycle and hotel’s promotional campaigns create numerous communication purposes. Promotional campaign communication objectives naturally relate to awareness, information and attitude generation and affecting behavior (Delozier,

If however, the information does not correspond with these needs, it is logical to be rejected. The importance of relevance is also in line with the findings of Cheung, Lee, & Rabjohn (2008). Secondly, an explanation for the insignificance of the timeliness factor could be found in the measurement construct. Only one item was used to test this factor which might explain the non-significance of this variable. This is also explained further in the limitations and further research section. Another possible explanation for the not significant relationship between timeliness and purchase intention might be found in the context of the study. In the online environment, topics related to hotels may not be as time sensitive as fashion topics, for example. Reviews from the past could even be perceived as valuable, because they can help customers to track down the reputation of a certain hotel. Thirdly, accuracy was also found insignificant and an explanation could be that it is a rather subjective term. A certain message could be perceived as accurate for some and imprecise for others. Moreover, the participants of the experiment could not know if the information in the reviews was definitely true or definitely false. Furthermore, for people that are looking for additional information in order to make the right choice, it might be difficult to decide whether or not the buzz is accurate, correct or reliable. This is because most of

Chan, ESW & Wong, SCK 2006, ‘Hotel selection: when price is not the issue’, Journal of Vacation Marketing, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 142-159, (Online Sage).