A week long survey ended yesterday asked what B&B’s thought about the new paid listing options that Tripadvisor will be offering come January of 2010. More information here http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/tripadvisor_enters_classified_listings_business/ and http://www.tripadvisor.com/BusinessListings

The results were mainly respondents garnered off of twitter and the survey was also passed around by several state and local bed and breakfast associations. Many MANY thanks to all the B&Bs (91 respondents) that responded to the survey and also to all the people that Retweeted the survey link!

Your help was very much appreciated!

The Survey contained the following questions:

• Where is the B&B located?
• What is the the name of the B&B (this information is not listed in any of the summaries and is confidential information.)
• What is the number of rooms at the B&B?
• What is an average room price at the B&B
• Is there a restaurant at the B&B?
• With the current news that Tripadvisor is going to be charging money for enhanced listings. Will the B&B be signing up?
• Does the B&B think Tripadvisor is taking advantage of small businesses by charging a huge fee for the listings, knowing that many people rely on the reviews given by them.
• Does the B&B think Tripadvisor will give preferential treatment to businesses that pay to list their accounts.
• Please leave any additional comments the B&B thinks are relevant.
• A question about being quoted.

While I admit at least one of the questions may have been a bit leading, questions were created on the basis of many of the phone, email and DM comments I had gotten from lodging properties concerned with the new developments.

So it is interesting to see the comments B&Bs did have, the option of listing no comment to their replies was available, but as you can see from the survey many voiced how they thought about this.

I am currently running another survey until the end of January that is open to all types of lodging facilities, it has several more questions then the Bed and Breakfast survey and I tried to make questions as ambivalent as possible.

If you are a B&B and you took the last survey, it would be VERY much appreciated if you would also take this one, it also contains some questions regarding other directories and your participation would be extremely helpful.

There is also an incentive to take the survey , a drawing will be held if your email address is provided for a free rack card design or redesign. Please take the survey here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RBSHKCM

In June of 2010 we will be running another survey regarding Tripadvisor’s paid listings, to gather information from lodging facilities to see whether they have listed or not listed with TA, and if they have listed, to share some of the statistics that have resulted from the paid listing.

The extended summary lists all replies with the exclusion of the B&B names. 50 pages including comments

Tripadvisor Survey B&B Extended

The summary lists location and the answers to 3 questions. 4 pages

Tripadvisor Survey B&B Brief

Tra le tante qualifiche ed attributi che possono essere riconosciuti a Colle di Val d’Elsa quello a cui i propri cittadini tengono maggiormente è quello di Città del Cristallo.
Dal 1331 infatti la produzione del vetro, evolutasi poi nel ‘900 in quella del cristallo, costituisce uno degli elementi maggiormente tipici della città, che per questo è stata definita dei secoli scorsi ‘Boemia d’Italia’ ed ora Città del Cristallo.
Tutto questo promosso dal Consorzio del Cristallo di Colle di Val d’Elsa, una realtà che raccoglie le aziende del settore, che rappresentano il 95% di tutta la produzione.

Bilindiği gibi TripAdvisor dünyanin en büyük online turizm portalı, bünyesinde 220.000 civarında otel, restaurant, destinasyon hakkında bilgiler ve yorumlar bulabileceğiniz cok kapsamlı bir site. Sitenin aylık 25 milyon uzerinde ziyaretcisi bulunmakta ve 9 ayrı dilde hizmet vermektedir.

TripAdvisor Ocak 2010 yilindan itibaren otel ve konaklama tesislerine reklam verme imkanı tanıyacak. Bundan sonra oteller kendi iletisim bilgilerini, telefon, website adresi ve email’ adreslerini TripAdviser sitesinde ekleyebilecekler. Bu durum otel ve konaklama sektoru icin çok büyük firsatlar sunmaktadir. Kisaca en önemli getirilerini söyle sıralayabiliriz:

• TripAdvsior oteller icin ilk defa sitesilerinde reklam olanağı sunmaktadır.

• Direkt otelin websitesine link vererek, site ziyaretcilerini otele yonlendirmekte, bu durum hem otelin sitesinin trafigini artiraçak hem de misafirlerin aracı olmadan otellerle iletisime geçme imkanı sağlayacaktır.

• Sitenin 7 milyon aktif kullanıcısı, 25 milyon aylık ziyaretci sayısı ve popüleritesi oteller için hem rezervasyon, hem gelir hem de marka bilinirliği acısında pek cok katkı sağlayacaktır.

• TripAdvisor’dan belirtildiğine gore yıllık sabit bir ücreti olacak ve bu ücret (yıllık) 200 EUR gibi dusuk bir maliyetten baslayacak ve otelin oda sayısı oranında artacaktır.

TripAdvisor bir kac ay once oteller icin Owners – Yonetici (Management) modülü oluşturmuş ve otel yoneticilerinin otelleri hakkinda yapilan yorumlarda ikaz emaili alma, kendi otellerinin bilgilerini güncelleme gibi bazi yenilikler sunmuştu. Bu reklam ile TripAdvisor kendisi için hem ek gelir oluşturacak hem de otellerle olan ilişkilerini daha fazla geliştirerek bir üst düzeye taşiyacabilecektir.

TripAdvisor Reklam Firsati

En son yapılan araştırmalara göre seyahat planlarının yüzde 80% ve üzeri internetten bir arama motoru ile başlamaktadır. Bu durum internetin oteller icin en onemli satıs ve pazarlama kanalı haline getirmistir. Aynı zamanda tüketicilerin %84 ‘u rezervasyonlarını kesinleştirmeden once TripAdvisor gibi seyahat portallarına giderek o tesis hakkındaki yorumları okuyarak orada daha önce konaklayanların tecrübelerini edindikten sonra rezervasyon işlemlerini noktalıyorlar. Bu da açıkca şunu gösteriyor ki, gerek otel, gerek motel, gerekse pansiyon olsun, hiç bir konaklama tesisisin hakkında yapılan yorumları takip edememezlik lüksü olamaz, olmamalıdır da. Sosyal medyadaki yorumlar tesislerin marka bilinirliğine ve sirket imajına ciddi bir sekilde zarar verebilemektedir. Bu yuzden otel yönetimi ozellikle sosyal medya takibini iyi yapmalı, olumsuz yorumlara da profesyonelce cevap vermeli ve olumlu yorumlara da tesekkür etmeyi ihmal etmemelidirler. Bu durum:

• Olumsuz yorumların etkisini azaltacak,
• Otelin imajının korunmasına yardımcı olacak,
• Misafirlere yorumlarının dikkate alındığı ve değerlendirildigi izlenimi verecek,
• Misafirler otelden ayrıldıktan sonra bile onlarla olan iletisim kanalini acık tutma ve iletisimi sürdürme imkanı sunacak, ve
• Loyal misafir sayısının artmasına katkıda bulunacaktır.

TripAdvisor sitesinin Ocak 2010′dan itibaren uygulamaya koyacağı reklam verme koşullari ve daha fazla bilgi icin aşağidaki linkten TripAdvsior kendi sitesinde bulabilirsiniz: http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/BusinessListings

Konuyla ilgili yorumlarınızı ve düsüncelerinizi lütfen benimle paylasın.

Sevgiyle kalın,

Velit Dundar

With the recent announcement that Tripadvisor is going to be offering a paid listing option, one wonders long term about the future of whether already financially cash strapped bed and breakfasts are going to pay the fees to be listed.

While I think most hotels will consider this a slight drop in the budget and will just add it in to their normal operational overhead, I think many bed and breakfast will be stuck in between a rock and a hard place.

Many B&B’s list their properties already on the two major B&B directories here in the states, bedandbreakfast.com and bnbfinder.com, between the two averaging around $500 plus per year in listing fees, plus many bed and breakfasts pay an additional average of twice that to be listed on many of the smaller directories cumulatively.

How is a bed and breakfast with only 3 rooms for example expected to pay the fees that TA is proposing?

With the economy still a mess and lodging and tourism trends still down, many inns may wish to be listed but for financial reasons will not be able to do so.

For B&Bs that have never had or have had few reviews posted, listing on Tripadvisor may be a moot point.

But what is the case of a B&B for example like The George Washington Inn’s listing on the Bedandbreakfast.com site,  which reads like every B&B’s wet dream, and doesn’t do too shabbily on Tripadvisor’s listing either, reviews go a long way for their bread and butter. Where they are getting primary traffic from is a question that they will have to answer in the coming months.

The other questions that spring to mind are the impartiality of the future paid listings.

Tripadvisor is currently  judged an impartial source. Once they start charging for listings the view by the general public that properties are paying for listings perhaps becomes skewed.

As a consumer, I will have a hard time looking at TA listings in the future and wondering if there is some sort of favoritism going on with the paid listings. While I strongly doubt this will happen, the fact remains that I will probably wonder about it, and as a result, would view another review site instead, to make sure they were completely impartial, or would return to a regular bed and breakfast directory to find lodging.

The long term result of this may also be that Tripadvisor turns into major competition for the primary Bed and Breakfast directories. This could have both positive and negative aspects.

Will B&Bs find its worth it to jump ship from the major directories and pay the fee to Tripadvisor instead? In the small budgets most B&Bs have, this is going to be a whopper of a decision.

Will B&B directories, if they find membership bailing out to Tripadvisor, have to give added incentives and price breaks to B&Bs to retain membership? Only time will tell.

I would hope that Tripadvisor would take a careful look at the fee options. Listing by room and property size would be a much more rational (and affordable) option for most bed and breakfasts.

From a marketing standpoint do you make more money having 10 bed and breakfasts listed for $600 each or having 600 bed and breakfasts listed at $100 each (which is a much more affordable option for cash strapped bed and breakfasts)?  You do the math.

If you are an inn or bed and breakfast, please take our Tripadvisor survey. It will run until Thanksgiving and results will be published the following week: http://chefforfeng.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/bed-and-breakfast-survey-about-tripadvisors-new-listing-options/

Fonte: Tripadvisor

Tripadvisor ha pubblicato questa classifica estiva frutto delle innumerevoli recensioni pubblicate dai propri utenti. A sorpresa non appare nella Top 5 nemmeno una località italiana, ma la fa da padrona la Spagna, incredibile ma vero presente in classifica un’intrusa del tutto insospettabile..

5. Platja de Ses Illetes, Formentera, Spagna

4. Luskentyre, Scozia, Regno Unito

Cosa??? Una delle migliori spiagge d’Europa è in Scozia???? Ma siete mai stati al mare in Scozia?

3. Es Trenc, Maiorca, Spagna

2. Calis, Fethiye, Turchia

1. Mirtiotissa, Corfù, Grecia

Managers of TripAdvisor property pages received an email from TripAdvisor today advertising the company’s new “Business Listings.” (Click here to read the email we got.) For a “low annual fee”, hotels can have their contact information (website, email address, phone number) on their TripAdvisor page.

Here’s the “low annual fee” list:

TripAdvisor Business Listing Annual Rates

If I’m a hotel marketer, would I push for adding this to my TripAdvisor page? I’m not sure I would, simply because it’s unproven as to whether or not it will be worthwhile. I’d have a better idea months from now after the reviews have come in, but it’s simply too early to tell.

Here’s what TripAdvisor should have done:

TripAdvisor should have allowed properties to “test-drive” this new feature for a month at a negligible rate ($5-$50, let’s say). If I’m a marketer, I’m going to be watching the statistics for my website to see how many visitors come to my site direct from TripAdvisor. Further, I’m going to be seeing what path visitors take through the site to see if they make it to the booking pages. If the conversion rate—or even the hit rate—is significant, I won’t think twice about paying the “low annual fee”. Conversely, if nobody is visiting from TripAdvisor, I won’t bother.

But, that’s not what they did. You buy a year or nothing. I predict lots of smaller and larger properties will jump onto this offer, but I think there will be a lot of indecision in the middle. I can’t blame TripAdvisor for giving this a shot, but I suspect we might see the “low annual fee” falling even lower in the coming months.

The bottom line is that if TripAdvisor is truly offering a valuable service here, they should have let properties test-drive it before signing up for a year-long subscription, especially since it has no track record.

I am the first to admit that I do enjoy technology. I love what it allows me to do  - who I can connect to and discover. BUT I have to say that I am learning how to cope with living with a techaholic. Alan, my betrothed, is addicted to technology. For him it is good since it is his job… but when you are holidays you need to be prepared for the following:

1. Excited acclamations of “There is WIFI here” , these are countered by curses of ”Why do they protect the WIFI, let it be free!… I am already paying for the hotel…”

2. You need to delay your entry into a hotel room, regardless of the time of your arrival, so they can take photos of the room … they assure you it is for the “community” and they need to give back to “Trip Advisor”. They will also provide running commentary throughout your stay….”I need to put this in the review…”

3. If you do get the chance to use any of “his” devices on holiday, you do so only with the assurance you will not CHANGE HIS COOKIES.

4. You travel with more than three devices – our latest holiday (in Southeast Asia) we were accompanied by an HP Mini, IPod Touch, Blackberry Bold and that was just his collection. I just had my Nokia. We also carried three digital cameras and a film camera.

5. Throughout your holiday your techaholic will continue to tell you how they still haven’t found the right phone and the browser on the BlackBerry Bold SUCKS.

I woke up in complete and utter pain. A few minutes of fighting through the haze of aching bones and screaming muscles cleared my head long enough for me to think “What the hell happened”?

It took me about 30 minutes to maneuver myself off my bed because I seriously hurt that badly. I finally made it over to the lit vanity mirror in my hotel room and an in-depth inspection of my body began. So far, I see large and small bruises on my right butt cheek, both knees, along my shins, the tops of my feet, across my ribs and along my forearms. If the pain is any indication, I know I’ll have more lovely purple flowers sprouting on my skin over the next few days.

My arms are sore. It takes me about 15 minutes to try to put on my bra because I can’t reach. My arms refuse to bend that way. It’s not because I’m not trying. No no no. They seriously won’t bend.

I also can’t pull my pants on. Again, this is because my arms have decided to stage a protest and refuse to let me get dressed. This wouldn’t be a problem if I like going commando while wearing dresses (I have no problem pulling things over my head) but seeing as how I prefer not to flash people or get arrested for indecent exposure, I’ll deal with the pain…and the 30 minutes needed to attempt to dress myself.

My legs, I’m happy to report, are perfectly fine. They’re just slightly sore but nothing a little light stretching won’t take care of. I have strong legs. Thank God.

So what was the cause of the pain and bruises? No, it wasn’t some crazy romping between the sheets. What kind of girl do you think I am? Don’t answer that. It was a rhetorical question.

I went surfing.

Having never been surfing and spending some of my most important years growing up in Hawaii, it was always a source of embarrassment to admit I don’t know how to surf. Well, that and I could give Casper The Friendly Ghost a run for his money in comparing who’s the fairest of them all in terms of paleness.

Therefore, this time around, I decided I was going to learn. The question then became “how”?

Ranked by TripAdvisor as #59 out of 198 in terms of attractions and things to do.
w00t!

Wandering around Waikiki, I was approached by a group of locals in super bright yellow tank tops. Turns out they’re from Star Beach Boys, a local company that teaches n00bs (that’s “newbie” or “completely clueless beginner” for you people who don’t know what a n00b is) how to surf.

A quick run down of Star Beach Boys ::

Guaranteed to stand up or your money back.

HELL YEAAAHH!!! Dude, they are sooo gonna work for their money because I’ve no clue about the first thing of surfing.

Experienced, Professional and Licensed

Okay, sounds good to me. I just want to say I surfed in Hawaii.

After Lesson, Board Rental Is $5 On The Same Day

Again, sounds good to me.

If you’re looking for them, they’re the supersonic yellow umbrellas in front of Waikiki Circle Hotel on the beach. Do me a favor and ask for Big Mike. He was the brave soul who taught my clueless ass how to surf.

And so we began.

Part Two of this story begins after I have some coffee.

Beginning today you can now see redesigned navigation on tourismvictoria.com.
We have moved to a Consumer/Visitor focus, with 3 main headers: Accommodations, Things to Do & See and Plan Your Trip. A few other updates you may notice; Travel Professional and Member headers are now located at the top of the page and all headers and sub-headers are now clickable.

We continue to work on major updates to the site that include a new search-engine friendly version of the member directory, strategic changes to the site behind the scenes, an updated and more search-engine friendly blog strategy, and an integrated social media strategy that will help drive more traffic to the site and our members. 
You will also notice the new bold, black, grey & white section under Go Shopping which includes a link called “Book Accommodation Online”, this goes directly to the Go Shopping/ Accommodation search, as well as the option to “Book by Phone 1-800-663-3883″. 
 
Additional updates:
 - Below our Image Library, you will find links to Tourism Victoria’s YouTube, Twitter and Facebook pages.
 - At the bottom of our home page, a TripAdvisor logo is also new, placed in exchange for a one year Featured Destination Placement on www.tripadvisor.com.
 - A new feature slide for Treasures has been created and uploaded, while keeping our Place Your Face and Olympic Torch Relay slides in their current rotation.
 - Tourism Victoria has also revised the “locations” filter options on the site that will be clearer to visitors.

Congratulations to Tourism Victoria member, YWCA of Vancouver Hotel. They have been chosen as a Best Bargain Hotel by TripAdvisor® in its 2009 Travelers’ Choice® awards. Now in its seventh year, the TripAdvisor Travelers’ Choice awards honour the world’s best hotels, earning their distinction from those who know them best – real travellers. To view the complete list click here.

In my last post I focused on some of the problems Urbanspoon will encounter as they launch their new online reservation service – Rez.  While the theme of the post is that Urbanspoon can’t take on OpenTable alone, there is still a lot of upside in the service from a restaurateur’s point of view.  In this post I’ll focus more on the positives of Rez and how they could potentially unseat OpenTable as the leader in online reservations.  Let’s take a look at a few key aspects of Rez:

1. From my understanding Rez was built for one purpose and one purpose only – to drive online reservations.  That being said, it doesn’t seem as if the folks at Urbanspoon will be building the ability to manage a restaurant’s floor plan within Rez’s module.  While that is an obvious chink in its armor, Rez is still the biggest threat to OpenTable on the market today.  Why?  Because OpenTable’s entire model is based on an absurdly high Pay Per Cover (not to be confused with Google’s PPC – pay per click) fee that it charges restaurants when the restaurant is sent “new” business.  Restaurants pay between a couple of hundred dollars to thousands of dollars per month for these online reservations!  If Rez can help diminish those costs than it’s already a leg up.

   

   Image via CrunchBase

2. No table management, No problem. From everything I’ve heard and read, Rez won’t offer a console to actually manage your restaurant’s books.  By not offering a floor management module, Urbanspoon leaves it up to the restaurant to determine which Table Management solution they’d like to use to run their restaurant.  While OpenTable does have a better functional dining room management system than most software on the market, there is software on the market that is exponentially cheaper and much better.  Henceforth, Rez’s flexibility is another benefit to their model.
3. Urbanspoon has the online traffic to pull this off.  While Urbanspoon doesn’t attract quite as many users as TripAdvisor or Yelp, it does attract exactly the same amount of users as OpenTable.com and should easily surpass them soon due to their array of iPhone apps and a much better functioning website.  In fact, Urbanspoon’s web traffic has increased by over 400% over the past year while OpenTable has only increased by 40% despite getting a lot of PR for their IPO in January. The graph below is pretty self-explanatory and indicates that Urbanspoon is making much larger strides than OpenTable when it comes to attracting users/diners.
4. Restaurants like saving money. If you’ve ever dealt with a restaurant you know that it can be maddening at times.  They are notorious for their negotiation tactics, and the industry as a whole has accepted this.  While vendors can give restaurant’s significant price breaks on beer, wine and food – OpenTable has not shown any interest in offering price breaks when dealing with online reservations.  Whether your restaurant gets 1 online reservation or 1,000 – you generally pay the same online booking fee (at least $1/cover).  I assume Rez will either be packaged together with other Urbanspoon online advertising fees or simply charged on a separate basis.  Either way, it has the potential to save a very busy restaurant thousands of dollars per month.

Over the last couple of months I’ve met with the top restaurateurs in the DC Metro area in regards to switching from OpenTable to a more advanced and economical Dining Room Management solution.  The one constant in the restaurant’s response was “how will leaving OpenTable affect my business?”.  The answer is it would affect it slightly, but not nearly as much as you would think.  The fact of the matter is that OpenTable books most of its diners either directly from a restaurant’s website or from a third-party website referral (eg: Zagat.com, Washingtonian.com, TripAdvisor, etc).  The only drop-off you should really expect are the client’s that OpenTable labels as VIP’s.  These are OpenTable power-users that make 12 or more online reservations per year.  The assumption is that if you’re not an OpenTable VIP, but booked a reservation through OpenTable.com than you already knew where you wanted to dine and OT merely facilitated the reservation.  OpenTable leads the restaurant to assume that the reservation originated from OpenTable.com, so the average restaurateur wrongly thinks that OpenTable is responsible for driving them all their reservations.  In reality those online reservation could have come from any one of the hundreds of affiliate websites that OpenTable has partnered with.

I think the key going forward for Rez is to make the system open-source so that developers can make a back-end specifically designed to help manage the restaurant’s floor plan.  If Urbanspoon is to take one lesson from the current OpenTable monopoly it should take a page from Google’s famous quote of “Don’t be Evil”, otherwise you’ll risk alienating the paying customers, which in this case is the restaurant.  OpenTable has created a monopoly in the hospitality industry over the last decade or so and from my earlier post you can see that this is wearing thin on restaurateurs.  Similar to the current theme of Microsoft vs. Google, the move of online reservations from OpenTable to Urbanspoon is just further proof that web-based software continues to overtake traditional software applications.  Expect this trend to continue..

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• Are Restaurant Managers Monitoring the Web? (socialmediatoday.com)

Hemos comentado en diversos artículos la divulgación de herramientas de la web 2.0 aplicadas a los portales de destinos. Los ejemplos ya clásicos de Suecia, Austria o Nueva Zelanda han abierto los ojos de los destinos tradicionales. En una sociedad que se fía más de las recomendaciones personales que del márketing convencional, los destinos han optado por introducir poco a poco las redes sociales en su estrategia de comunicación.

Desde hace unos días, la página web de la Costa Brava ha incorporado también algunos recursos que le acercan a la filosofía 2.0.  En primer lugar, disponen de su propia cuenta de twitter. Ya hemos comentado en otra ocasión las posibilidades de los nanoblogs turísticos, sobre todo si se utilizan como herramienta de comunicación y no como un mero retransmisor de anuncios. Los indicadores de calidad del uso de twitter insisten en la importancia de los RT (retweets), los favoritos y las citas.

La Costa Brava también está presente en facebook, donde es mucho más activa. La marca ha creado una página en facebook muy dinámica que presenta las actividades, las imágenes, las propuestas o los lugares más interesantes de la Costa Brava. Con más de 14.000 admiradores, se ha convertido en un espacio destacado en los destinos de facebook. ¿La clave?. La actualización constante de los contenidos.

En tercer lugar, destacamos la presentación de imágenes sobre flickr. Deberíamos preguntarnos cómo se puede conseguir un entorno de imágenes realmente 2.0. La primera recomendación es optar por las etiquetas: El objetivo es aumentar las posibilidades de visibilidades de las fotografías. Sería aún más efectivo que las imágenes fuesen georeferenciadas en portales como panoramio. La segunda recomendación es crear un perfil en flickr que actúe como una identidad digital y pueda comentar, proponer, criticar o divulgar sus propias imágenes o cualquier otra. Pero lo más importante es que los destinos abandonen la obsesión por la “propiedad” de  las fotografías y salten al creative commons. Si yo fuese un gestor de destinos, daría todas las facilidades del mundo para que los usuarios utilizasen las imágenes de mi territorio.

El último recurso es el enlace con el portal tripadvisor, que muestra las opiniones directas que tienen los usuarios sobre la Costa Brava.

Éste es un primer paso interesante y en los próximos meses veremos como los destinos van incorporando de forma masiva las herramientas 2.0. Ha llegado el momento de pensar en nuevas opciones, como la segmentación, el uso del concepto de inteligencia artificial, la aplicación de herramientas adaptadas al móvil o la creación de eventos participativos son algunas de las posibilidades. Ya no hay vuelta atrás.

]]> http://geosource.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/planning-your-trip/ Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:53:48 +0000 Kate Monohan http://geosource.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/planning-your-trip/ http://communitygirl.wordpress.com/2009/10/30/empower-your-best-contributors/ Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:33:22 +0000 emmakatetyler http://communitygirl.wordpress.com/2009/10/30/empower-your-best-contributors/

In an online  community, your top contributors are your site’s godsend. Roll out the red carpet for them, recognise and reward them, make them feel as valuable as they are to your community and brand.

Especially in the early stages of your community, your top  contributors are loyal visitors who continue to comment and post ideas – even if your numbers are small. They talk to the community manager by name, and set the high standards that should be part of any online community – listening and responding.

Once you have an established and working community, these people become your star pupils. But keep in mind – if you make a mistake, or become slack – they will certainly pick you up on it!

Your top contributors answer members questions before you have a chance, and will defend your brand when need be. A response to a customer’s negative comment always looks much better coming from a loyal customer than a company representative with obvious bias!

You can empower your best contributors by:

• Personally thanking them for the contributions and help.
• Launching a ‘Top Contributors’ blog post – where you recognise their efforts. Woolworths Everyday Matters community has recently launched their second Hall of Fame (disclaimer: I currently help Woolworths with their community).
• Assign badges which assigns a special status to your best contributors. This has been effectively done in sites like Tripadvisor, which assigns a number next to their screen name to indicate how many times they have left reviews on the site, or Hostel World which classifies their customers on how well-travelled they are – Novice Nomad, Avid Traveller and Globetrotter.
• In larger communities or communities where comments aren’t pre-moderated, you can assign these members moderating privileges which allows them to flag inappropriate comments, or allow new comments through. Communities like Game Spot, and Small Business Online Community. Communities like Slashdot use a ‘karma’ system, which depends on how good/bad/neutral your contributions have been so far.
• Ask them to guest blog for the site.

Remember to regularly research who your best contributors are, as there may be new members rising up the ranks – especially once they see how good it is to be a top contributor on your site!

Online-Hotelbewertungen haben sich als fixer Standard in der Online-Reisebranche etabliert. Nicht nur auf holidaycheck und tripadvisor findet man Online-Hotelbewertungen, sondern fast auf allen Online-Reiseangeboten spielen Sie eine Rolle. Online-Hotelbewertungen sind daher ein Plattform unabhängiges Feature, das kein Hotel in Österreich mehr ignorieren sollte.

Ein Vergleich der Top 10 der IVW-geprüften Reiseangebote vom August 2009 zeigt die führende Stellung von holidaycheck.de . Vier Hotelbewertungsplattformen unter den Top 10, belegen das enorme Interesse an user-generated Reisecontent.

Top 10 Reisenangebote nach IVW im August 2009

* Hotelbewertungsplattformen

(hotels.de und bookings.com sind nicht IVW geprüft und generieren ca. 4 – 5 Mio. Visits im Monat)
Daten entnommen aus IVW – Online-Auswertung

Mehr den je sind intelligente Online-Marketing Strategie gefragt, sich über die Integration von Bewertungswidget auf der eigenen Webseite hinausgehen. Die Möglichkeiten werde ich Ihnen auf meine Blog präsentieren.

Beispiel der Integration des großes Holidaycheck-Widgets für das Falkensteiner Hotel & Spa Bad Waltersdorf

Holidaycheck Bewertungswidget groß - Falkensteiner Hotel & Spa Bad Waltersdorf

   Grazie ai commenti di Mariuccia di Brescia, Sandro di Roma e Andrea di Milano, che ci segnalano che in Google Earth e altri collegamenti su Internet, il nome dell’Albergo Barrio Latino e indirettamente , delle Suites Caraibiche Andre Ha, e’ stato vincolato a una struttura nella zona piu’ lontana dall’area  turistica di Playa del Carmen, da quello che possiamo capire,  denominata Posada Picalu .

    Dobbiamo smentire quanto sopra e auguriamo un pronto successo ai nuovi arrivati ai quali chiediamo di sviluppare un marketing onesto ed indipendente che senz’altro dara’ frutti nel tempo,  soprattutto quando l’informazione data al cliente coincide con i servizi resi.

    Parleremo in un’altra occasione di questo tema interessante e di come sia meravigliosamente attento e prezioso alleato il turista che ci segnala ogni parola fuori posto in uno spazio enorme come la Rete dove e’ difficile accorgersi sempre di tutto…

„Dirtiest Hotels 2009“, diesen Titel vergab tripadvisor.com an die schmutzigsten US-Hotels. Für diese Wahl waren die Online-Hotel-bewertungen der Nutzer ausschlaggebend. Dieses Beispiel zeigt, welche Auswirkungen sich im schlimmsten Fall für Hotels ableiten lassen und wie Konsumenten die neuen Möglichkeiten von Social Media am Beispiel von Online-Hotelbewertungen nutzen. Mittlerweile sind 47 Prozent der deutschen Internetnutzer in sozialen Netzwerken wie Facebook, StudiVz oder Xing vertreten. Unter den 14 – 29-Jährigen Usern liegt der Anteil bei 89 Prozent[1]. Diese Ergebnisse zeigen, wie stark Social Media das tägliche Leben prägt. Social Media macht den Konsument vom passiven Empfänger, zum Dialogpartner auf gleicher Augenhöhe. Der Konsument verfügt über wirksame Kommunikationsmittel, die für oder gegen Marken eingesetzt werden können.

Im letzten Jahr habe ich den Fachwirt Online Marketing BVBW in München studiert. Im Rahmen meiner Diplomarbeit

Erfolgspotenziale von Social Media in der Hotellerie

am Fallbeispiel von Online-Hotelbewertungen der Falkensteiner Hotels

habe ich mich intensiv mit dem Potenzial von Hotelbewertungen auseinandergesetzt. Die Ergebnisse meiner Arbeite werde ich in meinem Blog veröffentlichen.

I know that TripAdvisor is not perfect and that good reviews can be seeded by the owners, just as bad reviews can be planted by business rivals.  We have chosen all our Belize destinations based on careful reading of the reviews.

The Barefoot Beach Hotel in Caye Caulker was #1 of all the hotels on the island with 85 out of a 100 reviews giving it 4 or 5*.

On Oct 19th Geogirl741 from Austin Texas posted a scathing review of her time there earlier this month – read the full review here.

Now there are some people you can never please, so I checked her other reviews and her next one was also one of our Belize destinations – Iguana Junction in the Cayo – and she loved it

It’s true we all have bad days,and it makes you realise that when you are in a service industry, one bad day can reap untold harm to a reputation you had to fight so hard to get.

The next reviewer, also staying this month said “Barefoot beach was a very pleasant place to stay. The owner Susan is very helpful in guiding what you would want to do on the island. The place is a little secluded, which is nice if you want to be away from town.” and gave it 5*.

Lets see how things develop between now and our arrival in 6 weeks time.