The impact of Social Media is being felt in all aspects of life these days, and that increasingly includes the travel, tourism, and hospitality industries.
Integrated Quality Assurance (IQA) has been launched by the a leading hotel group in a bid to create a new standard for measuring quality assurance for the hospitality and lodging industry.
Traditionally, unannounced hotel inspections set the industry standard for evaluating properties.
The Preferred Hotel Group is combining these inspections – sometimes referred to as mystery shoppers – with customer comments and rankings from a wide range of social media sites. The result is an on going array of feedback in real-time, which can lead to an improvement in service standards.
“Guests are the ultimate arbiter of quality today,” says Lindsey Ueberroth, President, of the Preferred Hotel Group.
“Preferred Hotel Group is pioneering a new standard in quality assurance measurement.”
Feedback from Social Media
Data from TripAdvisor, Frequent Flyer, Virtual Tourist, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media are all analyzed and evaluated along with data from traditional site inspections.
Ratings and scores are updated every 24 hours. Comparisons are made against five competing hotels. Hotel operators are able to react and respond to comments made on line immediately. And they can quantify social commentary.
As a result hoteliers are able to make meaningful decisions to improve service.
Copyright: Michael Taylor Pictured Michael Taylor of the Accidental Traver Writer was part of a panel discussion of travel bloggers at Social Media Week in Hong Kong last spring Photo Credit Accidental Travel Writer.