This is a guest post from The Europe Hotel & Resort, one of the most popular five star luxury hotels in Ireland.

People i.e. visitors and tourists now have the ability to make a substantial difference to a hotel or a restaurant’s business through the power of a review. The digital marketing team for The Europe Hotel & Resort have put together an infographic outling the many aspects to online reviews and how hotels can find the right way to deal with them.

We're living in an age of ubiquity of smartphones and tablets and widespread access to the Internet. This has resulted in monumental changes in how people live, do their work and socialize. In terms of industry upheaval, the hospitality industry has been turned on its head as a result of the increased internet access.

A review can, of course, be negative or positive and with social platforms such as TripAdvisor, it’s never been easier for a customer to state their opinion about somewhere they've visited. While some hospitality owners and operators perish at the thought of reviews, they've brought great change to the industry and that is a huge need for pro-activity.

A proactive manager will use these reviews, be they negative or positive to improve operations and if they don’t, they are missing out on substantially useful insight to their operations. A negative review can, of course, be upsetting to a hotel/restaurant but it’s how the operation reacts is the key. They can acknowledge the poor review and put in place systems to ensure the issue (should it be substantiated) doesn’t happen again. Positive reviews can be used to motivate staff and provide encouragement and wonderful feedback for existing work. 

Visit www.theeurope.com to learn more on how hotels can manage their online reviews.