PREFERRED Hotel Group (PHG) will kick off this month a new evaluation methodology taking into account public feedback of its member hotels on social media platforms.
In addition to the traditional unannounced hotel inspections by PHG staff, the Integrated Quality Assurance (IQA) programme will incorporate guest feedback from 14 social media sites to take into account the emotional aspect of hotel evaluation.
John Ueberroth, chairman of the board and CEO of PHG, said: “Our current evaluation programme is world-renowned, but it was put together 15 years ago.”
“The young people now do not care for certain things about the hotel experience that the older generation of travellers did, and the programme will be able to identify what is important to travellers now.”
PHG’s member hotels can opt to monitor social media sites in their respective markets through the programme, and pick the top five competitor sets they want their evaluations to be benchmarked against.
“The IQA programme will be able to identify the different needs of travellers according to (geographical) market segment,” said Ueberroth.
When asked if the new evaluation system would help weed out hotel members that fail to meet PHG’s quality standards, and thus result in a reduction of the group’s global portfolio, Ueberroth replied in the negative, and said that the programme serves to enhance the evaluation process and improve member hotels’ standards.
“This is especially useful for member hotels that are not able to track social media platforms on their own all the time,” he said. “We have people to monitor social media sites daily, and provide feedback to member hotels.”
