Just filled in my review of a sad little stay at an Earls Court hotel last week - inflated prices, impossibly small rooms and no air con – that type of thing.
Thing is I knew it was going to be poor before I stayed as I’d read my reviews – ignoring its star rating, I just cut through to what the paying public thinks and they were pretty spot on, apart from the odd, “its brilliant – thoroughly recommend” which I can only assume was written and posted by the hotel management, as it was a rare chink of light in a sky of thunder filled reviews.
The interesting development for hospitality with the spread of social networking and ready access to the internet and the web is that the public decide now what is good for us and what is not. Democracy is alive and well – if your product or service sucks, then fully expect somebody to photograph it, film it, comment on it and post it to a world wide audience of approx 6bn in a matter of seconds. Social networking has put the power back in the hands of the people – the genie is out of the bottle and there is no going back.
There will always still be room for a guidebook of course – ipads and iphones still have their limitations (hard to believe but true) connectivity, risk of theft, sunlight on the screen etc and the old analogy that lighters never fully replaced the match still is a good one.
However, what has changed is that we no longer need the “expert” An expert is good at conveying what they like, what they need, what appeals to them and when we had no one else to trust or listen to that was fine, but things are different now, very different. We are all commentators, informers, communicators and through blogs and social networking sites and the widespread use of smartphones we can now all have our say and instantly - we are all empowered.
The public decide who wins X-Factor, Big Brother, I’m a Celebrity etc the people are empowered, with a touch of a button, instant democracy by millions is delivered in a thrice – thumbs up, thumbs down, dreams created, lives shattered by a populous now used to deciding the fate of others – we love it, we want to be heard, we want a fraction of the action, we want a voice and now we have a platform – indeed we have many.
I can feel the luddites swaying uncomfortably, heads in the sand they stand there Canute like ignoring the inevitable and wishing for those John Major days of “warm beer, long shadows on cricket grounds and invincible suburbs” clumsily misquoted from Orwell by the way, in the Lion and the Unicorn.
However, let us consider the case of the Chinese for instance, Gulliver reports that 30 million Chinese booked travelled online last year (80% up on 2008) and 6 out of ten of them used web based forums to decide on their choice of destination. Just consider also that whilst globally the sector struggled last year – Chinas’ tourism revenues grew by 9% last year.
But things never stand still for long and China, India and Hong Kong travellers are now using social networking sites as opposed to travel based forums for selecting their travel destinations and preferences – 20% of them want the recommendations of their friends through Chinese versions of Facebook with the biggest and successful called Renren and value that more than anything else in their decision making.
Steve Kaufer, CEO of Trip Advisor, acknowledged this latest trend recently as he believes that users will no longer wade through 174 reviews from anonymous posters and will build their own group of friends and peers who they will rely on for their recommendations.
So the days of the expert are numbered – rather like John Majors’ misty eyed vision of Britain, its just for the romantics.
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