Tips for Managing Online Hotel Reviews: An Interview with TripAdvisor

By Daniel Edward Craig

"We often hear from travelers that how a property responds to criticism has more influence on their booking decision than the criticism itself.”—April Robb, TripAdvisor

Social media is all about managing your hotel’s online reputation, and no platform wields more influence on travel decisions than TripAdvisor. Recently, I interviewed April Robb, TripAdvisor’s Social Media Program Manager, responsible for social media outreach, brand monitoring, and blogger relations. She offered up some great advice to hoteliers for managing online reviews.

What’s new at TripAdvisor?
TripAdvisor now has 32 million unique monthly visitors, 15 million+ members, and more than 30 million reviews and opinions on over one million properties. We’re operating in 17 countries and 12 languages. One of our newest initiatives is Business Listings, which allows hotel owners the option of including direct contact details – website, phone number, and email address – on their hotel page on all TripAdvisor domains for an annual fee based on the size of property. Our goal is to put hoteliers one keystroke away from converting potential guests into paying guests.

Social Media for Hotels - Taming the Beast

If anything strikes fear in the hearts of hoteliers these days, it’s social media. Seemingly overnight, we’re expected to tune in to dozens of websites each day to make sure no one has badmouthed us or posted an embarrassing video. If they have, we’re obliged to respond in a courteous, guest-is-always-right manner, knowing that everyone is listening—travelers, clients, media and the competition. No pressure there.

We’re also expected to generate original content. Not the easy pleasantries we’re used to exchanging with guests, like “Good morning!”, “Superior or deluxe?” and “How would you like to pay for that bathrobe in your suitcase?”, but clever, meaningful things in text, image and video format. And regardless of how desperate we may be to fill our rooms, we’re forbidden from being salesy or overtly promotional. That will cost us friends and followers.

Social media is like a difficult guest who demands so much attention we’re not convinced she’s worth the effort. She’s in our lobby now, demanding to speak to the manager, because she didn’t get her wakeup call—and missed her daughter’s wedding. Like any great leader, our first impulse is to run and hide. But that will only make things worse. So we gently take her aside, listen, learn, and use every tool at our disposal to turn her around. In essence, we tame the social media beast.