Creating a Business Case for Revinate

Since launching last year, Revinate has grown quickly thanks to many key influencers at hospitality companies that saw the product and made it their mission to get it adopted across the organization. Seth Godin calls these folks ‘sneezers’. Sneezers are the people that tell others about products, thereby creating an ‘Ideavirus’. Sneezers are often critical to growth as it is said that 10% of the world influences 90%.

Revinate is a product that demos very elegantly and sells itself well. Anyone who has been tasked with manually finding and responding to reviews immediately understands how much time and effort Revinate will save. As these folks start to tell others about Revinate, they are often hit with the question, “what’s the business case?” In an effort to help our sneezers promote Revinate, I wanted to provide some information and industry stats that clearly show why Revinate is a necessary investment.

Online reviews are the most disruptive force in the hotel industry since OTAs.  There have been dozens of great stats published lately about how influential online reviews are for travelers, but the one that I love, because it speaks to the business case, is this stat from PhoCusWright’s study, “Social Media in Travel: Traffic & Activity”: People who visit online reviews before visiting an OTA or hotel site are more than twice as likely to book. Good reviews make people go from lookers to bookers.

This stat from Expedia is also very compelling for hoteliers: Good reviews of 4.0 or 5.0 generate more than double the conversion of a review of 1.0 – 2.9.  This stat should make every hotel put a program in place to encourage reviews and closely monitor reviews for feedback and opportunities to improve. What’s the advantage of being highly rated? Expedia claims that 95% of all transactions on the site occur with hotels that appear one page one of hotels. In addition, 47% of transactions occur with hotels in the top five positions on the page.

And, according to Expedia, online reviews are also critical to a higher ADR. In fact, they claim that just a 1-point increase in a review score equates to a 9% increase in average daily rate.

But a hotel’s online reputation is about more than online reviews. Social media is also critical. Revinate allows a hotel to monitor Twitter, Facebook, Forums, Blogs, News, Comments and Photo and Video sites for mentions. According to World Travel Market, 35% of social media users changed their hotel after browsing a social platform. Talk about influential…

Competition for online bookings is fierce. Having the best tool to measure, monitor and improve an online reputation is critical for hotels that want a powerful, competitive edge.  Hotels that use Revinate are at a significant advantage. Not only do Revinate clients have the best tool to monitor and act on reviews and mentions, but Revinate clients have insight into their comp set’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as where and how to position their property against the competition.

Need help putting a business case together? Contact me at Michelle at Revinate.com.