How business travelers use online reviews

Due to the growing influence of online reviews and ratings on consumer booking behavior today their impact on hotel’s sales results is becoming increasingly clear to notice.

There are interesting new studies proving this relationship. In one of our last blogposts we have already reported about similar studies focused on leisure travel.

A new research about “How Business Travelers Buy. Hotel Pricing in a Social World” from SAS and The Pennsylvania State University looks at how business travelers use online reviews to assess value. We have selected some points, that might be quite interesting for you:

• Unlike leisure travelers, business travelers are not overly sensitive to price and negative reviews.
• Business travelers are highly influenced by their loyalty affiliation and might even put up with a hotel that’s “good enough” if it’s their preferred brand.
• Hotels that drop rates as compared to the market will likely generate demand from this segment.
• Business travelers are looking for facts, not feelings

Conclusion:

Review content was not a significant contributor to choice, nor was TripAdvisor Rank.
However, review language was significant.
Business travelers preferred more descriptive reviews over those with emotional language.
If a review was positive or negative, business travelers wanted to know why.

Learn more and read the full article on hotelmarketing.com
Learn more about the studies

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