As a hotel’s guest review score has a significant impact on the RevPAR performance of a hotel, we place great emphasis on online reputation management in our hotel revenue management strategies. As a little refresher, we asked our friends at TrustYou for some practical tips on how to tend to your hotel's profile online. Here the first in a series of articles on this topic.

In Part 1 of our hotel internet marketing plan we ended talking about brand protection to drive direct sales. Another method that can be used and is very effective is PPC advertising in search engines, also called SEM, or Search Engine Marketing.In Part 1 of our hotel internet marketing plan we ended talking about brand protection to drive direct sales. Another method that can be used and is very effective is PPC advertising in search engines, also called SEM, or Search Engine Marketing.

It is a balancing act for hoteliers between selling rooms through their own direct channels and using the help of third party websites, wholesalers and online travel agents (OTA's). Naturally, the best way would be to do everything ourselves. According to the motto ‘if you want something to be done good, do it yourself’. But as an independent hotel will it be enough to rely solely on your own revenue management and hotel marketing strategy. In practice however we often reach out for help and alternative distribution channels.

No matter how much you are on top of your game, and how hard you try, sometimes things simply do not go as planned. No worries, it is natural that mistakes or mishaps happen from time to time.

The question is what are you doing about it? How are you handling the situation to avoid getting a negative review online. You need a good hotel reputation management plan to deal with such situations. Do you stick to just the basics or do take it to another level?