Study Reveals Which Hotel Attributes Trigger Travelers To Book

by July 1, 2015 9:00 am Pressemitteilungen

Consumer research explains how travelers choose to book hotels within various travel contexts

 

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Munich, Germany and New York, USA – July 1, 2015 TrustYou, the inventor of the Meta-ReviewTM and global online reputation management leader, and Donna Quadri-Felitti, Director of the School of Hospitality Management at Pennsylvania State University, have released the results of a study to understand which hotel attributes have the biggest impact on travelers’ booking decisions. The study used heat-mapping technology to understand which attributes prompted hotel bookings in eight different travel contexts (business travel, family vacation, etc.). The study is available for free download here.

 

Findings show the complexity of the booking process. To be within a traveler’s consideration set, hotels must provide basics like cleanliness and comfort, which are the self-reported most important factors in determining where to stay. However, when presented review “snippets” or excerpts within a booking scenario, travelers often choose a hotel based on other factors relevant to the context in which they are traveling, such as great WiFi for business trips or wonderful rooms when planning a romantic getaway.

 

 

“Hotels must understand what travelers want and need in a hotel when making their booking decisions,” says Quadri-Felitti. “These self-reported important attributes like cleanliness and comfort are required for a hotel to be a part of a traveler’s consideration set. Once a hotel becomes part of the traveler’s consideration set by delivering on the “must haves,” it can then focus on attributes that actually trigger a traveler to book.”

 

Valuable findings include:

  • The nine most important hotel attributes broken out for leisure travelers and business travelers (i.e., service, amenities, food, etc.)
  • Details on traveler desires across six different leisure experiences and two different business travel scenarios.
  • What family travelers and couples want most when choosing a hotel

 

“The attributes that influence travelers to book a hotel are closely tied to the context in which the person is traveling. For example, a hotel with great WiFi is a trigger for business travelers, while great food is important for those traveling with their friends,” adds Margaret Ady, Vice President of Marketing at TrustYou. “By understanding these triggers, hotels can focus efforts to improve, optimize marketing, and leverage review content to best cater to its audience and ultimately increase bookings.”

 

Full details on what attributes prompt a traveler to book in each context are available in the free report here.

 

For more information about TrustYou, please contact Margaret Ady at margaret.ady@trustyou.net.

 

Über TrustYou

TrustYou’s Mission is to positively influence travelers’ decisions. Reviews and user-generated content rank #1 in influencing travelers’ hotel selections and industry reputations. Digesting all of these opinions, however, is beyond any one person’s capacity. Each day things become more complicated because millions of new opinions in thousands of formats and dozens of languages enter the fray. TrustYou searches, analyzes and distills hundreds of millions of opinions scattered across this vast, fragmented market. Our products are extensively used by suppliers – hotels, accommodations, restaurants – to provide travelers with better services and enhanced offerings by monitoring, surveying and acting upon all worldwide guest feedback. Travel intermediaries – OTAs, meta-search, destination marketers – use TrustYou’s Meta-Reviews™ to help travelers purchase wisely. TrustYou’s Meta-Reviews™ are based solely on verified travel reviews. They do not include data from TripAdvisor.