关于OTAs平台上的客户在线评论与酒店业之间的研究 - 5）结论和建议

5.0 Conclusion

 

5.1 Main inspiration

 

The main inspiration for the report research is that Blal and Sturman (2014) confirm that the number and content of online reviews of hotels published by customers will affect the performance of the hotel. Moreover, Liu et al. (2017) research the importance of various attributes among various customer groups seems to vary greatly. The demand for different types of customers and the motivations and purposes of customers vary, resulting in different evaluations of the same hotel (Francesco and Roberta 2019). Xie et.al (2014) report pointed out that providing timely responses can enhance future financial performance, while responses provided by hotel executives and responses that only repeat topics in online reviews can reduce future financial performance. A constructive response to the service restoration plan for negative reviews and a continued commitment to positive reviews have driven subsequent customers purchase decisions. Levy et.al (2012) also shows that the best response strategy is to make a positive and personal response in a short time. Staff respond to thanks for the positive evaluation of customers, reply and rectification for the negative evaluation, which will help the hotel maintain a good reputation and customer retention rate. The report reminds MI and IHG managers must attach importance to hotel reviews published by customers on OTAs. Understanding online customer reviews can help hotels formulate relevant customer demand and provide personalised customer experiences for different types of customers.

 

5.2 Discuss findings and recommendations

 

Combining the analysis and discovery with SWOT analysis to makes MI and IHG aware of current and existing problems. This report continues to combine another marketing strategy tool to provide relevant reasonable suggestions for MI and IHG. And proved the research objective 2: Identify and recommend how hotel management can effectively use the OTA customer reviews data to formulate and maintain effective marketing strategies.

 

5.2.1 Hotel marketing strategy - Customer segmentation

 

Customer segmentation should be one of the main elements of the marketing strategy (Nibusinessinfo 2020) of MI and IHG. The existing customer types and demand of the hotel are determined through the research report. This report provides hotel managers with recommendations based on different types of customers. Firstly, according to customer segmentation, customers types of MI and IHG can be distributed group of two: businesspeople and leisure customers (including solo, families, couples and friends). Businesspeople and leisure traveller have different wants, demands and travel patterns (Lavanchy 2018). Secondly, the relevant suggestion for MI and IHG managers based on the analysis results of the above five customer types.

 

5.2.1.1 Businesspeople

 

SiteMinder survey shows that this accounts for nearly 500 million business trips each year in the USA alone. In 2021, business travel spend will reach US$1.6 trillion (SiteMinder 2020). The data indicated that business travel is great for hotels it’s less seasonal and more predictable as events are organised well in advance. Working requires corporate businesspeople to visit the same place regularly which can lead to solid repeat business for the hotel (Jong 2020). Personalisation and a hassle-free stay are extremely important to today’s businesspeople. If MI and IHG managers can know customer demand and provide personalised services before they come. The report analysis shows that compared with other customers, businesspeople are more affected by factors such as room, service, restaurant and food. The reason for these preferences is that businesspeople meet guests in the hotel lobby and work in the guest rooms (Chu and Choi 2000; Dolnicar 2002).  And they eat or entertain business partners in the hotel to save time. Also, business travellers talk to each other about the hotels they stay at. Shankman (2013) research also pointed out that focus on efficiency and self-service so that ‘business travellers’ can better enjoy and arrange their experience. The report suggests if MI and IHG managers providing businesspeople with fast online check-in and check-out self-help functions and provide them with the no-frills service most of them expect and give them great experiences to share, positive word of mouth can work wonders for hotels reputation and positive reviews (Jong 2020).

 

5.2.1.2 Leisure customers

 

The Google survey in 2018 shows that 82 % of leisure customers rely on reviews for their choice of hotel (Lavanchy 2018). Because leisure customers want to have the best deal for their stay. Not necessarily cheap, but good value for money. If hotels have too many negative reviews, it will lead to a decrease in the goodwill of leisure customers towards the hotel. Therefore, this requires MI and IHG managers to pay attention to the online customer reviews on OTAs and train professional staff to actively feedback and respond to customer reviews on the hotel. Compared with businesspeople, they are often looking for ways to enhance their travel experience and are drawn to hotel packages than the businesspeople (Hoang 2014). The report suggests that MI and IHG managers can occasionally provide information on hotel discounts packages for leisure customers and use their knowledge of different types of customers to provide them with corresponding information on recent hotel discounts to attract them to come.  If MI and IHG have enriched facilities like pools, evening entertainment and kids’ clubs, which will be more appealing to leisure customers.

 

• Families

In addition to favouring brand hotels and resorts with many convenient facilities, families are also keen to book hotels which have playgrounds that children love (Darios 2020). Different from other types of customers, families more careful the services provided by the hotel for children. Therefore, it is recommended that the hotel can provide a set suitable for the children’s diet and the children’s tableware is prepared during the meal. The room will be equipped with exclusive children’s toiletries.

 

• Couples

If MI and IHG can attract couples looking for romantic experiences such as romantic dining experiences. The hotel can provide couples with personalised services including booking a driver-driven Rolls Royce, a horse-drawn carriage or enjoying an eight-course tasting menu, allowing them to enjoy an interesting hotel experience (Lee 2019). In this regard, the hotel can understand the travel methods of couples in advance and ask if parking services are required.

 

• Solo

Since solo will seek reassurance from past customer feedback, the extra effort made by MI and IHG will help increase attractiveness and reputation. Obviously, solo cares more about the hotel's location and hotel traffic. In order to reassure customers, MI and IHG can provide more hotel-related protection functions and specific location information on the official website, promotional websites and advertisements. When conditions permit, choose a room that makes solo feel safe. It even provides free pick-up and drop-off service for customers whose flights are delayed, which will increase their confidence in the hotel (Berelowitz 2018). MI and IHG should consider providing local sightseeing strategies for solo. Solo love local specialities and will follow the hotel's recommendations, especially regarding local cuisine and tourist routes (Shankman 2013). MI and IHG should prepare many local suggestions and maps to provide assistance and use to solo.

 

• Friends

The types of friends are more inclined to enter the hotel bar and have dinner with friends. Therefore, the hotel can recommend the hotel bar for friends of friends and ask for their preferences.

 

 

5.3 Impact of recommendations future directions for empirical research

 

Hotels can benefit from knowing and listening to customer reviews and what they require. That will impact and make full use of reviews to improve their business prospects and business opportunities (Hu et al. 2017). Future research can dynamically track hotel price changes and discover the impact of price on customer expectations and hotel product and service perceptions. Starting from understanding different types of customers, formulate individualized needs and improve hotel business performance. Real-time attention to which hotels are starting to invest in big data analysis techniques for hotel operations and understand the results they have achieved.

 

5.4 Limitation

 

This research is not without its limitations. First of all, the report only selects TripAdvisor as the database for collecting online customer reviews, so it is impossible to observe differences in reviews of the same hotel between online travel agencies. Therefore, ratings and comments may have been manipulated. Further reviewer information, previous review and writing styles may have an impact on future research. Secondly, since the study only uses MI and IHG as the research object, it is limited to the global hotel chain and there is no subdivision of hotel types (other types of hotel chains under the hotel chain group, such as business hotels and resort hotels) that may cause the research results to have deviations and limitations because different customers have different needs for different types of hotels. Third, when filtering customer types, the report mines and researches customer reviews based on the customer types provided by TripAdvisor, but professionals with in-depth knowledge of the hotel will better understand that the hotel has more than five types of customers, and sometimes, one customer has two types of customers at the same time (for example, during this period, a business person first went to a local business to attend a meeting and visited the local city while staying in the same hotel for a few days), so it is necessary to further segment customer types. It helps to understand the needs of the hotel's specific customer types more effectively. The report only summarises and studies the customer's demand for hotels through these five types of customers. All in all, the hotel industry is a university question. Researching hotel operations, hotel marketing, and hotel technology all require time and effort to savour.