We recently spoke with Luigi Rotunno, President of ABR, to understand how the association uses “Guest Intelligence” to help their members exceed guest expectations, outperform competitors and position the brand as a reference for excellence.

1. Why do you think it is important for a resort association to monitor online reputation?

Resorts are products of a high standard, which require high quality indexes across all departments, from housekeeping to gastronomy and leisure. Monitoring online reputation by department allows resorts to identify the areas that need attention as well as those that are working well, to be able to continually increase the quality of service. As a result, the resorts will begin to outperform their competitors, adding value to the individual properties as well as to the association itself.

2. What kind of improvements have you been able to make at ABR since you have had access to ReviewPro’s analytics?

Since implementing the tool, we have started to issue monthly reports to members to explain the overall performance of ABR. This month we have begun to group the resorts by regions, which makes it easy to see each individual resort’s positioning within their group. Since we began reporting four months ago, we have seen an increase of one percentage point in the association’s GRI™, and a positive trend compared to the same period in 2015. For example, an interesting point we identified in our departmental meetings was that the topic of “Quality”was mentioned in several discussions within the association.

3. What kind of improvements did the resorts make on an individual level?

We do not analyze the resorts individually but rather the association as a whole or else specific regions of Brazil. We have noticed a large increase in the GRI™ and Indexes, such as food and value, that we knew were “below average” based on benchmarking against our competitors. We realize that everyone, individually, is striving to make improvements to increase their individual indices, and consequently contribute to the growth of the global GRI™.

 

4. What does a resort association gain from guest feedback analytics?

From guests’ reviews and comments, the association can understand the best performing areas in the resorts. When we send reports to members, we expect each resort to dedicate some time and attention to making improvements, analyzing what other members are doing “better,” and also identifying strengths to further enhance those areas. The association’s leading resorts are those with a higher quality of service, better positioning in the market and, consequently, are top of their comp-sets in the Brazilian market. As a result, the association becomes a reference in hotel excellence for future guests who rely on the brand.

5. Is it useful to compare your performance with other resorts? If so, what did you discover?

Yes, understanding the potential of the competition is key to understanding the positioning of each resort and the areas that should be worked on. Analyzing other competing resorts has allowed us to identify ABR’s strengths which we try to use to more effectively promote the association and each resort individually, in addition to flagging areas for improvement that need to be addressed by all members.

6. How has ReviewPro opened doors for membership?

With the ReviewPro tool, ABR has been able to scale its market and prioritize action points, identifying threats and possibilities amongst our own resorts and our competitors. We were able to develop monthly reports on the quality of the member resorts, which is completely innovative in the Brazilian resorts market. Before this there were only quantitative reports, with revenue and expenses, occupancy rate, etc. Now, the association has quantitative and qualitative indexes, which helps to differentiate us from competitors.

7. How do you use the data? (For example, setting goals and performance indicators)

We use the data to compare to the previous period and the same period in the previous year. This way we can identify possible improvements in resort performance. In addition, we have established a GRI™ of 80% as a minimum quality level for members so the resorts are currently extremely focused on achieving this goal.

8. Do you consider the GRI™ useful? If so, in what way? To create goals?

We analyze the monthly and annual performance of the resorts and compare to the same period last year to create global GRI™ goals and goals by department. The GRI™ helps the resorts to position themselves relative to their market, the competition and of course guests.