BHN has teamed up with leading guest feedback and online reputation management specialist GuestRevu and worldwide renowned hospitality management institution Glion Institute of Higher Education, to launch the awards, which will be presented at an awards ceremony held at the Boutique and Lifestyle Hotel Summit 2017 in London on May 22/23.
The BoHos will reward the boutique, lifestyle and hybrid hotels who provide the very best in guest experiences. The awards will be unique in that the winners will be decided, not by judges, but by the hotels’ guests, using a combination of aggregated verified guest feedback from review sites and booking engines worldwide, and direct guest feedback via questionnaires. Each will have a 50 per cent weighting in a hotel’s overall score to give a true picture of the guest experience provided.
The awards are open to any UK or international boutique, lifestyle or hybrid hotel. To enter they need to be using a guest feedback and online reputation management solution in order to provide the necessary verified guest reviews. If they don’t currently have a solution, GuestRevu is offering a free 2 month trial, worth up to £300, to hotels who wish to sign up and enter.
The award entry period runs from January 25th to February 28th. Then each hotel’s data will be collected over a two month period, starting from the 1st March. At the end of the two months, each entrant’s guest reviews and direct feedback will be independently evaluated, scored and ranked by Glion students and faculty at the renowned Glion Institute of Higher Education in the UK.
Award Categories
- Best City Hotel 1 – 20 rooms
- Best Country and Coastal Hotel 1-20 rooms
- Best City Hotel 21 – 50 rooms
- Best Country and Coastal Hotel 21-50 rooms
- Best City Hotel 51 rooms and above
- Best Country and Coastal Hotel 51 rooms and above
- Best City Hotel – overall winner
- Best Country and Coastal Hotel – overall winner
- Best International Hotel – overall winner
Piers Brown, CEO of IHM said: “We’re delighted to launch the BoHos with GuestRevu. Online reviews – which reflect the overall guest experience – are more important than ever for hoteliers. Not only are they hugely influential in ‘humanising’ travel decisions, they are the barometer which hotels use to monitor whether they are fulfilling their role and delivering on their promise to the guest. The BoHos will reward and recognise those hotels who are the very best at delivering guest satisfaction, by going that extra mile to give their customers unforgettable hospitality experiences. The winners will ultimately be chosen by the people who really matter – the guests themselves.”
Francine Heywood, co-founder and director of sales and marketing at GuestRevu, said: “Guest feedback, both direct through questionnaires and indirect through online review sites, is one of the most powerful marketing tools available to hotels, and by monitoring this and reacting accordingly, hotels can increase loyalty, brand advocacy and profitability. We’re very excited about working with IHM and Glion on the BoHos so we can honour the very best hotels in the boutique and lifestyle sector, and celebrate the fantastic job they are doing in providing amazing service to their guests.”
“Unlike other industry awards, the winners will be decided by the end user – the hundreds of thousands of guests who leave online reviews and provide direct feedback, and in doing so, influence their peers in their travel booking decisions. Online review platforms need to cater for all sorts of properties and so, by their very nature, are generic. Just using these as a metric would mean that there is no room for the unique nature and experience offered by the hotels operating in the boutique and lifestyle sectors to make an impact. These awards are here to change that. By including direct guest feedback scores, the awards will be a true reflection of the ‘guest’s choice’ for best hotel”, she added.
“We estimate that more than 60 per cent of UK hotels are not currently using automated guest feedback or online reputation management software,” says Heywood. “The awards represent a great opportunity for those who don’t yet do so to gain access to this very powerful marketing tool while giving themselves the chance to win one of the inaugural BoHo awards.”
Vivien Ivanyi, partnership manager of Glion Institute of Higher Education said: ” Glion is delighted to participate in such an initiative as it provides our students with a real-life project in the industry on a very relevant topic, online reputation. Since its foundation in 1962, Glion has been preparing young professionals to join the world’s leading hotels, by constantly adapting its programs to an ever-changing industry and training the next generation of talents relevant new tools. This award is an excellent opportunity for Glion students to demonstrate their level of customer expertise and showcase our unique institution to prominent industry leaders and partners.”
For more information and to enter the awards, click here.
The awards will be presented at a ceremony the evening before the 2017 Boutique and Lifestyle Hotel Summit in London. Winners and students from Glion will participate in a seminar at the Summit discussing best practice in guest feedback and online reputation management.
For more information about the awards entry and evaluation process, please contact at Francine Heywood at GuestRevu: francine@guestrevu.com. For more information about the awards ceremony and the Boutique and Lifestyle Hotel Summit please contact Lavinia Rusu at lavinia@internationalhospitality.media
