GLOBAL REPORT—A picture is worth a thousand words. In the hotel industry, that same photo also might be worth a thousand clicks.
A potential increase in guests and revenue multiply exponentially the more images are employed via social media sites, sources said.
Experts from online travel agencies said hoteliers, apart from adding images to their websites and social media channels, must pepper pictures on OTAs or risk losing out on market share.
TripAdvisor in September published a study showing that hotel websites with at least one photo received 138% more engagement from travelers and had a 225% higher likelihood of a booking enquiry compared to those that don't have any photos.”
And that was with just one photo, said TripAdvisor’s Stephanie Boyle, senior PR manager.
Properties with more than 100 photos saw a 151% increase in engagement, while those with more than 1,000 photos saw a 203% increase in engagement.
Boyle said photos are an important element in how TripAdvisor analyzes traveler booking behavior. It’s also one content inclusion hoteliers can have complete control over.
According to the study, “number of photos” was the factor that drove the most traveler engagement, coming ahead of “total number of reviews,” “management responses in the past year,” and “number of reviews in the past year.”
“Engagement levels increase with the increase in the numbers of photos; it’s that simple,” said Boyle. However, many websites still lack photos altogether.
Guests’ photos also should be an integral part of the mix, she added.
“User photos show what the experience is like from the guests’ perspectives,” Boyle said.
Such photos often answer the questions guests have but that do not occur to staff. “For example, ‘Will I be able to see the chef preparing the food in the restaurant?’” she said.
Picture perfect
Other advice Boyle said would up eyeball and click time are:
- Change the principal photo seasonally, as this often taps into an audience the hotelier is unaware of.
- Partner with OTA and online companies in using their social media data to help target strategy.
- Employ a two-prong attack of using hotel and destination photos. Boyle said one surprising hit with online surfers were photos of showers. Ask what it is travelers love about hotels and how destination shots purvey a genuine experience. Some guests love the hotel, others love the destination, and some love both.
- Combine high-resolution, professional, hotel-led images with lower-quality guest images. On TripAdvisor, Boyle said, these are separate from each other, and hoteliers are able to submit reports to investigate concerns.
- Social media pages must be an extension of property websites, and hoteliers must make them as equally beautiful.
Sara Borzatta, Trivago’s global social media and content writer, offered her own advice.
“Images of hotel swimming pools always work,” she said.
“Recreational areas (are) a great way to drive engagement, while contrary to popular belief, hotel exterior images are not always the most successful,” Borzatta added.
At the Expedia Hotel & Distribution Summit held in September in Vienna, Benoit Jolin, Expedia’s senior director of global product, said the OTA posted more than 40,000 new property-generated photos every week.
Laurens Leurink, president of Expedia’s lodging partner services, said hoteliers have the power to convert bookings from photos and other social media content.
“Hotels have to ask not if my hotel is being viewed, but is it visible?” Leurink added.
Borzatta said hoteliers should not be satisfied once the hard work is done. They have to constantly monitor their hotels and guests as to trends and influences.
“The strategy behind posting is similar to an editorial calendar of a publication, with themes, events, seasonality and product development all shaping both the content and the timing,” Borzatta said.