BEST PRACTICES TO MAINTAIN A HIGH HOTEL

EVALUATION RATE ON REVIEW SITES

ANALYTIC STUDY APPLIED TO: FIVE STARE HOTEL ON TRIP ADVISOR

Magdy Abdel Aleem Mayouf

Nabeel Ali Ahmed Badran

Hisham Ezat Saad

Lecturer, Faculty of Tourism

and Hotels, Fayoum University

Lecturer, Faculty of Tourism and

Hotels, Fayoum University

Lecturer, Faculty of Tourism and

Hotels, Fayoum University

Maa08@fayoum.edu.eg

Nab00@fayoum.edu.eg

Heg00@fayoum.edu.eg

ABSTRACT
It has been reported in many cases that Word of Mouth (WoM) is very effective
marketing tool. In hotel industry, most customers choose hotels based on
recommendation of a friend, it (word of mouth) is one of the important factors in
hotel selection decision. This effect is magnified for e-WOM, where the impact of
online dissemination of opinion is more and far- reaching and more rapid.
Trip advisor is the authority site used by travelers to read real information, tips,
advices, and opinions. It provides information on cities, attractions, hotels,
restaurants supplemented with contributions from real travellers, much of
researches has focused on the impact of review sites Polarity. It is clear that
positive reviews are good and negative reviews are bad, but the picture is more
complicated, as Ye, Law et al. (2009) shows how a 10% improvement in reviews
rating can increase sales figures by 4.4%. That raises in mind an important
question how can hotel maintain good review rating in review sites?

Keywords:
Review Sites, Trip-advisor, Hotel review,

INTRIDUCTION
One of the greatest impacts of information technology is the impact of the internet
on tourism and travel. That great impact refers to the availability of a huge amount
of information about travel destinations and accommodation options (FernandezBarcala, Gonzalez-Diaz et al. 2010), some of this online information comes from
official sources such as tourist offices and service providers, but the most
interesting information is often to be found in social media.
Social media websites do not just provide information; they allow users to interact
with a business and with one another. This interaction can be as simple as
comments left on a blog or product recommendations based on ratings from people
with similar interests. It is the new electronic wave of Word-of-mouth which has
been recognized as one of the most influential communication channel since the
beginning of society, especially for experience goods (Duan, Gu et al. 2008).
Conventional interpersonal word-of-mouth communication is only effective within
limited social contact boundaries, and the influence diminishes quickly over time
and distance (Ellison and Fudenberg 1995). The advances of information
technology have exceeded the traditional limitations of word-of mouth. Consumers
can now easily and freely access information and exchange opinions on
companies, products, and services on an unprecedented scale in real time (Duan,
Gu et al. 2008).
All tourism businesses need to implement strategies and tools to incorporate these
new technologies (Smyth, Wu et al. 2010), Online social travel networking
reshaped the way tourists plan their trips. These websites allow users to interact
and provide reviews on hotels or on local tourist attractions. Some examples of
these websites are TravBuddy.com, Travellerspoint, WAYN, Woophy,
Passportstamp, and TripAdvisor.com. The latter is probably the largest travel
community on the Web (Miguns, Baggio et al. 2008).
The subject of this paper aims to find the best practices that enable hotels to
maintain good review rating in review sites. The researcher used a technique like
the gap analysis to identify the practices that are applicable by Hotels and
Accepted by travellers. The study limited to five stare Hotels in Cairo and to the
users of trip-advisor.

REVIEWE OF LETRUTURE
What is trip-advisor?
Trip-Advisor is a website based on the idea that travelers rely on other travelers
reviews to plan their trips, or at least can be satisfactorily helped in their decisions
by them. Most information posted on trip-advisor is autonomously generated by its
users. They post reviews, comments and ratings on a destination, a hotel, an
attraction or any other tourism related object or service. Furthermore, it is
possible to add multimedia elements (photos and videos) or travel maps of
previous trips or take part in discussion forums (Miguns, Baggio et al. 2008).
Why trip-advisor?
It has long been recognized in hospitality industry that it is greatly influenced by
word-of-mouth. This impact is magnified for eWOM as it is more rapid and farreaching (Calveras and Orfila 2009; Fernandez-Barcala, Gonzalez-Diaz et al.
2010).
Trip-Advisor branded sites make up the largest travel community in the world,
with more than 260 million unique monthly visitors, and over 125 million reviews
and opinions covering more than 3.1 million accommodations, restaurants, and
attractions. These sites operate in 34 countries worldwide (tripadvisor.com 2013).
Review ratings have a great impact on hotel sales as 10% improvement in
reviewers' rating can increase sales figures by 4.4%. and a 10% increase in review
variance can decrease sales by 2.8%.
Social media sites are prominent parts in travel search results. And tripadvisor.com
is the most prominent site in this regard(Xiang and Gretzel 2010). Meaning that
search engines link travelers directly to social media sites (specially trip-advisor),
and thus increasing the impact of these sites.
Customer Reviews Impact in Hotel Industry.
The social media impact in tourism and travel was the subject of extensive
research. Interesting findings have been reported, For instance, Vermeulen and
Seegers (2009) argued that online reviews have a bigger impact on smaller, less-

known hotels, while Calveras and Orfila (2009) assured that online reviews have
less impact on larger hotel chains, where the brand reputation had to be preserved.
A lot of researches focused on the impact of the review type (positive or negative).
For instance, Ye, Law et al. (2009) present a quantitative analysis that shows how a
10% improvement in reviewers' rating can increase sales figures by 4.4%. They
also show that the variance in reviewers' ratings has a negative impact on sales (a
10% increase in review variance can decrease sales by 2.8%). (Clemons and Gao
2008) argue that many customers are interested in identifying a reasonably priced
hotel that meets the minimum level of quality they needs. For these customers,
strongly negative reviews will have a bigger impact than strongly positive reviews.
This is because the negative review suggests that the quality threshold will not be
met.
Other researches were interesting in examining management responses posted on
hotel reviews. Trip-advisor give hotel managers a right-of-reply on reviews Smyth,
Wu et al. (2010) considered these management responses as an evidence that
management is aware of their reputation on trip-advisor. Recent studies find that
the right-of-reply facility was very little used. It was used by just one of 71 hotels
in the Scottish study (Briggs, Sutherland et al. 2007) and just two of the 500
reviews in the London study (OConnor 2008). But there were a significant
increase in the use of management responses during the period covered by Smyth,
Wu et al. (2010) as they find that a 10% of reviews were receiving management
responses. This increasing interest in using the management response facility
should not be surprising as Ye, Gu et al. (2008) show in an analysis of online
Chinese travel agencies that management responses have a significant positive
impact on online bookings.
Motives for Writing Reviews.
Because of the conceptual closeness of traditional word of mouth (WOM)
communication and the electronic word of mouth (eWOM) generated on social
media specially review sites, consumer motives that have been identified in the
literature as being relevant for traditional WOM also can be expected to be of
relevance for eWOM.

The most prominent study of WOM communication motives is by Dichter (1966),

who identified four main motivational categories of positive WOM
communication: product-involvement, self-involvement, other-involvement, and
message-involvement. Miniard (1993) modified Dichters typology, renaming the
categories and introducing an additional motive dissonance reduction which they
see as a reason for articulating negative WOM communication only (Engel and
Roger 1993).
The most comprehensive study on motives for WOM communication was by
Sundaram, Mitra et al. (1998). they identified eight motives for consumer WOM
communication, Four of the identified motives explain positive WOM
communication ( altruism, product involvement, self-enhancement, and helping the
company) while the other four motives give reasons for negative WOM
communication ( altruism, anxiety reduction, vengeance, and advice seeking).

Motives
explain
positive WOM
communication

Altruism.

The act of doing something for others without

anticipating any reward in return.

Product involvement.

Personal interest in the product, excitement resulting

from product ownership and product use.

Self-enhancement.

Enhancing images among other consumers

projecting themselves as intelligent shoppers.

Helping the company.

Altruism.

Motives
explain
negative WOM
communication

Anxiety reduction.
Vengeance.
Advice seeking.

by

Desire to help the company.

To prevent others from experiencing the problems they
had encountered.
Easing anger, anxiety, and frustration.
To retaliate against the company associated with a
negative consumption experience.
Obtaining advice on how to resolve problems.

Table 1: Motives explain Positive and Negative (WOM) according to Sundaram, Mitra et al.
(1998).

Many researches aimed to identify the motives explain eWOM, in general we can
say that Most of the arguments relating to conventional WOM also relate to
eWOM

RESEARCH METHEDOLOGY
In this research paper, because there is a little literature related to the practices that
enable hotels to maintain a high level of customer evaluation rate on review sites,
the researcher decided to implement the field study of this research in three phases.
The first phase begins with reviewing the literature to identify the motives explain
the positive reviews and the motives explain the negative reviews.

Review of literature
Motives to write
Negative Reviews

Motives to write
Positive Reviews

Reviewing Negative Reviews

Reviewing Positive Reviews

Latest 50 review in each hotel

included in the research sample

Latest 50 review in each hotel

included in the research sample

Practices to increase positive Reviews & Practices to decrease

negative reviews
Survey

Hotel E-Commerce manager

to assure that it is applicable

Hotel Guests
to assure that it is acceptable

Compare Means using SPSS

Applicable & acceptable practice to increase positive reviews

and decease negative reviews.
Figure 1: Research Methodology

In the second phase the researcher reviewed the latest 50 review in each hotel
included in the research sample and classifying them according to the motives
identified just to identify the practices that support each of these motives.
The third phase is assigned to conducting a survey a five degree likers scale
indicates the level of agreement on the practices identified in the second phase
the survey form was distributed on two categories of respondents, the first category
was the hotels e-commerce managers to assure that these practices is applicable.
The second category was hotels customers, to assure that these practices are
acceptable.
A compare mean analysis was used to identify the differences between the level of
agreement of these two categories, also an independent sample (t) test was used to
assure the significant of the differences. It is a technique like the gap analysis the
researcher used just to be sure that the practices which will be recommended to
hoteliers by this research are applicable and acceptable.
SAMPLING.
As the aim of this research paper is to recommend the best practices that enable
hotels to maintain a high rate in review sites, the hotels included in this research
sample have specific characteristics, it must be:
The best hotels Five Star Hotels.
Have an account on trip-advisor.
Have a high Customer evaluation rate (at least 50%).
So the researcher used a purposive Sampling have the previous conditions, which
revealed the following 20 hotel.
No
123456-

Hotel Name
Kempinski Nile Hotel Cairo
Fairmont Cairo, Nile City
Four Seasons Hotel Cairo at Nile Plaza
Sofitel Cairo El Gezirah
Conrad Cairo
Fairmont Towers Heliopolis

Rating
%

Reviews

95
92
94
89
86
88

392
497
413
646
539
259

7891011121314151617181920-

InterContinental Citystars Cairo

JW Marriott Hotel Cairo
Ramses Hilton
Cairo Marriott Hotel & Omar Khayyam Casino
InterContinental Cairo Semiramis
Dusit Thani LakeView Cairo
Grand Nile Tower
Concorde El Salam Hotel
Fairmont Heliopolis
Le Meridien Heliopolis
Sonesta Hotel, Tower & Casino Cairo
Sofitel Cairo Maadi Towers
Radisson Blu Hotel, Cairo Heliopolis
Pyramisa Cairo Hotel and Casino

86
84
77
86
83
84
81
82
73
66
54
57
75
59

475
406
808
982
548
196
304
268
232
212
241
139
326
247

Table 2 : Sample

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

4.78
4.83

Reply of guest reviews

Ask the guest for a review

4.00

3.33

4.11
3.83

Offer the guest options of review sites

4.44
4.83

Have the right staff

Exceeded Expectations

3.50

4.33
4.78
5.00

provide Remarkable Experiences

0.00

Guest

1.00

2.00

3.00

4.00

Hotelleir

Figure 2 : The main practices affects customer reviews

5.00

6.00

Having recreational facilities and

programs

4.67
4.33

Having advanced IT systems and

solutions

4.11
4.00
4.33

Having creative features and amenieies

4.00

Having wondeful views and interior

decoration

4.11
4.33
3.60

Guest

3.80

4.00

4.20

4.40

4.60

4.80

Hotelleir

Figure 3: Practices to provide customers with remarkable Experience

3.11
3.67

Avoid super reviews

follow a policy of under promising and
over delivering

3.22
4.67
4.78
4.83

do not tell unreal words

0.00
Guest

1.00

2.00

3.00

Hotelleir

Figure 4: Practices to avoid Exceeded expectation

4.00

5.00

6.00

Table 3 : T test for practices that affects the exceeded expectations

talented and have hobbies could be

used in entertaining guests

3.78
3.83
4.22
4.83

Doing their jobs in an artistic manner

Skilled in doing their jobs

4.56
4.67

always be prepared to serve guests in a

friendly way

4.44
4.67
4.78
4.67

Receives guests with a smile

0.00 1.00 2.00 3.00 4.00 5.00 6.00

Guest

Hotelleir

Figure 5 : Hotel staff characteristics

Others

1.22

Venera

1.22

Agoda

1.22

2.00
2.33
2.17

1.00

Hotel clicks

2.17

1.22

Hotel.com

3.67
4.78
4.50

Trip-advisor
4.11
4.00

Expedia
1.56

Booking.com
0.00

1.00

2.00

Guest

4.17
3.00

Hotelleir

Figure 6: Review site Options

4.00

5.00

6.00

Table 4 : T test for the review sites options

3.89
4.17

In response to comment cards

When Someone says something
positive

3.67
2.89

In follow-up e-mails

4.33

4.17

2.22
2.67

During the check-out process.

0.00
Guest

1.00

2.00

3.00

Hotelleir

Figure 7 : When to ask for a review

Table 5 : T test for the time to ask for a review

4.00

5.00

4.22
3.83

Invite the guest to visit the hotel again

Offer incentives

2.50

Ask the guest to write his Opinion on another

review site.

1.89

3.89

4.00
4.22

Thanks the guest.

4.67

1.33
1.00

Do not reply of poditive reviews

0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00 3.50 4.00 4.50 5.00

Guest

Hotelleir

Figure 8 : Replies in case of a positive review?

Table 6 : T test of replies in case of positive reviews

1.00

Try to convince the guest that it

1.67
2.11

Give reasons for service failure

2.67

Tell the guest about recovery action the hotel

will do

4.89
4.83
4.33
4.17

Say sorry of service failure.

1.00
1.17

Do not reply of negative reviews

0.00

Guest

1.00

2.00

3.00

4.00

5.00

6.00

Hotelleir

Figure 9 : Replies in case of negative reviews

RECOMMENDATIONS
The study revealed that following guidelines to be considered by Hoteliers when
dealing with review sites specially trip-advisor.
1) Provide the hotel customers with remarkable Experience which could be :
Recreational facilities and programs.
Fascinating views and interior decoration.
Creative amenities and facilities.
Advanced IT solutions.
2) Avoid customer exceeded expectation:
Never tell unreal words in you marketing campaign.
Be careful of unreal super-reviews.
Follow a policy of under promising and over delivering.
3) Recruits the right people and encouraging them to do their best , place a strong
emphasis on the following characteristics:
Skilled in doing his job.
Doing his job in an artistic way.

 Always be prepared to serve customer in a friendly way.

Receive guests with a smile.
Talented and can participate in guest entertainment programs.
4) Ask the guest for a review, its preferable to ask for a review only at:
When someone says something positive.
In response to comment cards.
5) Avoid limiting your request to just one review site, Offer options of review sites
which must include:
Trip-advisor.
Expedia.
6) Do not forget to reply to all reviews negative and positive, the following are
recommended guidelines to be used:
When you get a positive review, thanks the guest and invites him to visit the
hotel again.
When you get a negative review, Say sorry of service failure and Tell the
guest about recovery action the hotel will do.

REFERENCES
Briggs, S., J. Sutherland, et al. (2007). "Are hotels serving quality? An exploratory study of service quality
in the Scottish hotel sector." Tourism Management 28(4): 1006-1019.
Calveras, A. and F. Orfila (2009). Intermediaries and quality uncertainty: evidence from the hotel
industry. Second Conference of The International Association for Tourism Economics, http://ssrn.
com/abstract.
Clemons, E. K. and G. G. Gao (2008). "Consumer informedness and diverse consumer purchasing
behaviors: Traditional mass-market, trading down, and trading out into the long tail." Electronic
Commerce Research and Applications 7(1): 3-17.
Dichter, E. (1966). "{How word-of-mouth advertising works}." Harvard Business Review 44(6): 147-160.
Duan, W., B. Gu, et al. (2008). "Do online reviews matter?An empirical investigation of panel data."
Decision Support Systems 45(4): 1007-1016.
Ellison, G. and D. Fudenberg (1995). "Word-of-mouth communication and social learning." The Quarterly
Journal of Economics 110(1): 93-125.
Engel, J. F. and D. Roger (1993). Blackwell, and Paul W. Miniard (1993), Consumer Behavior, Fort Worth,
TX: The Dryden Press.
Fernandez-Barcala, M., M. Gonzalez-Diaz, et al. (2010). "Hotel quality appraisal on the Internet: a market
for lemons?" Tourism Economics 16(2): 345-360.
Miguns, J., R. Baggio, et al. (2008). "Social media and tourism destinations: TripAdvisor case study."
Advances in Tourism Research(Aveiro).
OConnor, P. (2008). User-generated content and travel: A case study on Tripadvisor. com. Information
and communication technologies in tourism 2008, Springer: 47-58.
Smyth, P. C. B., G. Wu, et al. (2010). Does tripadvisor makes hotels better, Technical Report.
Sundaram, D. S., K. Mitra, et al. (1998). "Word-of-Mouth Communications: A Motivational Analysis."
Advances in consumer research 25(1).

tripadvisor.com (2013). "Fact Sheet." 2013, from http://www.tripadvisor.com/PressCenter-c4Fact_Sheet.html.

Vermeulen, I. E. and D. Seegers (2009). "Tried and tested: The impact of online hotel reviews on
consumer consideration." Tourism Management 30(1): 123-127.
Xiang, Z. and U. Gretzel (2010). "Role of social media in online travel information search." Tourism
Management 31(2): 179-188.
Ye, Q., B. Gu, et al. (2008). "Measuring the value of managerial responses to online reviews-A natural
experiment of two online travel agencies."
Ye, Q., R. Law, et al. (2009). "The impact of online user reviews on hotel room sales." International
Journal of Hospitality Management 28(1): 180-182.