"What Friends are For" - How Luxury Travelers Choose a Hotel in the Information Age
They consult more sources than ever and still trust personal recommendations most
TORONTO, Canada, How do savvy, frequent travelers find the best hotel? They do their homework -- and lots of it, on average, checking eight different sources of information. They read top travel publications. They visit multiple web sites. They talk to travel agents. And before deciding, 82 per cent consult another tried-and-true resource: someone they know.
"Clearly our guests are taking in more information, from more places, than ever before," said Jim FitzGibbon, President Worldwide Hotel Operations, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts. "What's been interesting is the consistent power of personal recommendations, for them and others like them. This motivates us even more to make each stay a good one -- and to measure how well we are doing with that."
Four Seasons has long monitored guest satisfaction in a variety of ways. Given the continued importance of personal recommendations, the company is now also polling its guests directly on this question, as part of regular post-stay evaluations. It has conducted more than 1,300 such interviews with guests over the last 12 months.
So far, 88 per cent of these Four Seasons guests have said they would definitely recommend the hotel at which they stayed. Satisfaction with the stay rates 9 on a 10-point scale.
"It's a relatively new initiative," said Susan Helstab, Senior Vice President, Marketing, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts. "What we have seen is consistently high willingness to recommend, along with high guest satisfaction."