If businesses in the leisure and hospitality industry listened to their customers it could add £3.2bn to the sector
The hospitality and leisure industry could get a £3.2bn boost if it responds better to reviews, research published today suggested.
Improving how the sector manages and responds to customer feedback could add an extra £2bn to the UK economy with the impact on the sector’s large supply chain contributing a further £1.2bn, according to a report on the sector by Barclays.
Smaller firms stand to gain the most from increasing their feedback engagement as larger companies are more likely to already have systems in place to deal with it Mike Saul, head of hospitality and leisure at Barclays told City A.M.
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“SMEs can benefit from this kind of thing very quickly. Bigger multinationals have people that are on it straight away, but with smaller companies, reviews and feedback can get missed,” said Saul.
The survey found that 59 per cent of consumers say that reading other people’s reviews played an important role in helping them to decide where to visit or stay.
This rises to 70 per cent amongst 25-34 year olds.
Millennials are also significantly more likely to cite online customer reviews as being very important in determining which hospitality and leisure services to use.
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Close to a third (29 per cent) of 18-24s and 27 per cent of 25-44s rated online reviews as one of the three most important factors influencing their decision on where to stay – alongside more traditional factors such as value for money and customer service, as opposed to 18 per cent of the over 65s.
TripAdvisor was seen to be the most influential online feedback site, with 60 per cent of respondents citing it as being relevant to their business, though the business has not been able to convert this influence into revenue particularly well.