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Do you have a New Year’s goal to rank higher on Trip Advisor (TA)? Wouldn’t you love to be one of the hotel’s featured on the “Visiting [insert your city here]” page similar to this teaser for South Africa?

Visiting Cape Town, South Africa

TripAdvisor best fares

Phoenix to Cape Town: only $1,206

See more flights

A client asked me for some advice on how to increase his hotel’s ranking. I thought this would be good information to share with my readers. So, here you go.

First, the majority of the guidelines out there state the obvious. Listen to your guests’ comments and make some changes. Naturally, common sense can be used here. However, if a pattern is detected take the hint. For example, I like fluffy pillows and comfortable mattresses and I look for that before choosing a new hotel. If I see multiple reviews that reference “pillows are flat as pancakes,” I will be moving on.

That’s not very helpful you say? I am stating the obvious? Below are a few more tips and tricks I found.

Manage your hotel listing. Find your hotel on their site, scroll to the bottom and click on the link “Manage Your Listing.”

Register yourself as the owner of the page. After you verify ownership, update and correct items such as hotel name, address, and amenities. Does a description need to be added? What about professional photos? Travelers love pictures! Additionally, review traveler photos. Are they appropriate and accurate?

By doing this, you are optimizing your page which shows activity. Google loves that! So does TripAdvisor.

After you’re registered, set up email alerts. You will then be notified when a new review is posted.
Don’t forget to respond to the reviews. TA strongly suggests the hotel reply to the negative reviews. I say, reply to them all! Why should only the negatives get all the attention? It’s like ignoring your well-behaved child because his sibling is out of control. Offer the love to your happy guests too. We all like to be acknowledged once in a while. You are reinforcing positive behavior (back to the kids’ reference).
In regards to the negative reviews, take the high road. Be polite and professional no matter how insulting the reviewer was. Also, it is safe to state you’re sorry for the inconvenience. If you plan on doing something about the issue, let the reviewer know. Remember, the reviewer and 50 million ³ of his closest friends are watching.
Take note of TripAdvisor’s rules. “Don’t set TripAdvisor as the homepage on the hotel’s business center computers. Don’t encourage guests to review the hotel on TripAdvisor while on property. Don’t test the system with false reviews.” ²TA monitors that. They’ll flag your account-which you want to prevent.
Encourage your guests to post reviews. According to an EHotelier article “Your property's ranking is affected by a number of factors including quantity of reviews, actual ratings from the reviews, and whether the reviews are out of date - the more current a review, the more positive an impact it will have on your property's ranking.” ¹

Did you catch that? Newer, positive reviews are the name of the game here. I found a great quote about HK Hotels.

“It was clear that satisfying our guests’ expectations wasn’t enough. To inspire the enthusiasm to post a review, we needed everyone to be thrilled. We had hired the nicest, happiest people we could find, so it was up to us to lead, train and empower them. Each hotel discusses reviews at morning meetings and posts comments on the board. Every employee, from housekeeper to doorman to general manager, takes pride in positive comments, so it created a self-perpetuating culture of going above the norm.” ⁴

Some additional actions you can take

There are a few convenient options on the hotel owner’s page to make it easy for guests to post a review.

As a reminder for a guest after he/she checks out, Trip Advisor has links available that can be added to a post-stay email.
Customizable widgets for your website are available to either display current reviews, write a review or display “Recommended on Trip Advisor.” ⁵ There are even some unique ones such as “What’s nearby” which helps visitors find nearby amenities, “hotel availability” and “check rates.”
Encourage staff to ask guests about their stay and if all is well, ask them to write a review. The Owner’s Center also has flyers and customizable reminder cards available to hand out.
Actively encourage new reviews. Pages with older reviews lose their ranking.
Are you a new owner of a hotel with a poor reputation? Go to the owner’s page and fill out a “change of ownership” form. After verification, TA will remove reviews that occurred during the prior owner’s term. ⁵

As you can see, working with TripAdvisor is not as much a mystery as one thinks. If I missed any good tips, please share your wisdom. If we all work together, we can make 2012 a profitable year for all. Good luck!

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Amy Bair is a Process Improvement Expert. Her specialty is partnering with hospitality businesses to improve service, increase revenue and reduce expenses. Learn more about the services she offers and download her free report “5 Top Ways Hotels Can Increase Revenue and Improve Customer Satisfaction” at www.bpenow.com.