The “iRON Hu LATAM’12” online reputation management for lodgings

Lodging is a key element in the tourist experience. According to comScore 80% of Latin American users utilize the internet in the planification process of their trips, in many cases influenced by third party opinions.
A comparative study of online reputation management was carried out in the second semester of 2012; the first edition of this analysis is known as “iRON Hu LATAM’ 12″, and focuses on 20 urban cities in Latin America.

This study was developed by Vivential Value, a pioneering business in the study of the reputation and online identity that carries the term “iRON” since 2008 for hotels, restaurants and destinations.

The iRON (index reputation online) is obtained by means of an algorithm of calculation where they use:

• Ratings of lodgings on the internet  (on a scale of 0-10).
• Volumes of opinions that support the ratings.
• Visibility of the websites where these appear.

The “iRON Hu LATAM’ 12″ considered for its study 541.343 opinions on a sample of 16.258 reviews of 4.000 lodgings on the most relevant Internet opinion sites, from a regional to an international standpoint.
Santo Domingo was included in the listing of the 20 capitals of Latin-American countries followed by: Asunción, Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Caracas, Ciudad Guatemala, Ciudad México, La Habana, La Paz, Lima, Managua, Montevideo, Panamá, Quito, San José, San Juan, San Salvador, Santiago de Chile y Tegucigalpa.

Subsequently, we briefly share some of the results and challenges mentioned in the infography:
The capitals with better index were San Salvador (8, 18), Quito (8.12) and Bogota (8,09).  If we add the City of Guatemala, these four cities were the only ones to surpass the ratings 8 out of 10.

The main challenge is to enlarge the volume of opinions to surpass the reputation.

• 24% of lodgings analyzed did not have any opinion (invisibility).
• 52% of lodgings had maximum 10 ratings.
• 79% of lodgings had less than 50 opinions.

The second challenge is to improve the experience and the ratings of the client to leave the “zone of dissatisfaction”, since 15% of ratings oscillated between 0 and 6 points, were classified as “dissatisfied”.
Lodgings that obtained excellent ratings were hostels, pensions, and similar categories.  Showing clearly that the competitiveness does not depend on the size of the establishment.

64% of lodgings met the expectations of the client, being catalogued as “neutral”.  21% obtained ratings from 9 to 10, considering the stay as “very satisfactory”.

In conclusion, there’s still room for improvement in the online reputation of Latin-American lodgings.
These should be focused in surpassing the expectations of their clients, and optimize those factors that directly affect the reputation online: increase the influence of their brands in social networks, create a plan of action to collect feedback of users visiting web platforms and meet their needs.
To achieve better ratings for a success in the online reputation for their business  independently of their size.

Infographic  by Hernan Lew  with the main results and challenges of the study: