How much are "reviews" worth for a hotel in Albania? Topuzi: Online comments are replacing traditional advertising
Vacationers no longer choose a hotel based solely on stars or advertisements. In the digital age, it is online reviews and ratings that are determining the success or failure of a tourism business. From the way staff respond to criticism, to the experiences of previous customers, reviews have become the main passport to credibility for hotels and restaurants. According to the Head of the Association of Tour Operators Zak Topuzi, before making a reservation, a tourist reads an average of 8 to 12 online reviews, analyzing not only the environment, but also the quality of service and the staff's response to problems.
" The most important part, not only the stars, but more so now the comments that, let's say, customers leave in the management system. Almost 88% of the hotel, guesthouse or restaurant management system today is done by, through booking.com or Expedia. And it is understood how important the comments that customers leave there are. No customer now risks booking in a place without reading the comments. According to the recommendations coming from the EU, from weekly information, every customer before making a reservation checks 8 to 12 reviews, with which they are familiar, looks not only at the views, but also at the service, problems, shortcomings and how the staff react to their comments. And then they decide. So it is no longer the agencies that are the main ones to get an indication before you make a booking. And this element is so important that it is no longer worth investing so much in advertising than in a control and management of comments and, let's say, the page of these we are saying, engines which, so that the faster the business reacts and the more professionally it responds, the more it can climb in the rankings. And it is almost the main indicator now. Of course, the stars for a hotel are very important, but that's where the selection begins. So you can be a good singer, but if you don't enter a festival, you have no way of competing. And in this specific case, these engines make the selection and take you to the levels of control and scope. And through this, you can manage to secure the profits that, from an 8.1 that can, up to 10 points have for hotels and guesthouses. If you will secure a ranking from 8.1 to 9.1 or 9.2, you can secure 10 thousand euros more at the end of the year just from the ranking, from the reviews. So it positions you in price, positions you in the type of client and all the elements of "So it's very, very important now, " said Zak Topuzi, Head of the Association of Tour Operators
In Albania, the importance of reviews is considered even greater, due to the lack of full standardization of the tourism sector. For many hotel structures, presence and performance on online platforms remains the main way to gain credibility among foreign tourists.
" In fact, Albania is more interested in entering this management system, since we are still a country whose tourism legislation is not complete, so we are unstandardized and little specified with stars. So the only window where you can count is, are these social networks and we are saying, following these indicators, these points. And it is very important, since Albania was considered years ago an unsafe, unstable, not serious country and the gradual increase in Albania's performance in the tourist market has now made this position more visible and more reliable in this, in this way of communicating with customers. And not everyone pays attention, they fail to understand the importance of this problem. And then they are forced to change the name, the performance, to start a business with a new name from scratch to escape these types of elements that affect prices extremely much. Not long ago, two years ago I was in a hotel in Greece and we had some remarks from the staff. After two years, the general manager calls us and says: we have changed the staff, we have improved the remarks you have, we have changed all the managers, so we recommend you to come to us. So, look how careful! A hotel after two years takes its clients who have made remarks, and explains to you in detail that we have improved these, we have changed the direction, the management and you, we recommend that you come back again. So today they are very important. So they are more, more important than the stars or the classification that you can have and the certification that you can have, whether as a hotel, as a guesthouse, or even as a restaurant, " said Zak Topuzi, Head of the Association of Tourist Operators
On the other hand, international examples show that businesses that react quickly to criticism and invest in improving service manage to bring back customers and strengthen their reputation.
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