July 27, 2018
How a New Lisbon Hotel Is Succeeding on Tripadvisor
July 27, 2018
Corpo Santo Hotel is an independently-owned historic hotel that became a top Traveler Ranked property in Lisbon after opening in 2017. We caught up with General Manager Pedro Pinto to learn about his strategies for success.
Building a great online reputation starts with providing great service. To achieve this, Pinto has invested in staff and constant improvements: “Our strategy is to provide exceptional service and delight guests with new things. Great staff is key so we’re careful about who we hire and regularly communicate the feedback we receive,” says Pinto.
He then encourages guests to share their experiences with other travelers on Tripadvisor. “We work to outperform ourselves instead of our competitors, always focusing on service and reviews. It’s not only about providing a quality experience, but also a commitment to using Tripadvisor to get the word out about Corpo Santo,” he shares.
Through a commitment to building Corpo Santo’s online reputation with guest reviews on Tripadvisor, Pinto has been able to attract guests — and he continues the cycle with fresh review content. “We encourage guests to write reviews with Review Express,” Pinto says. “Guests love our hotel so they’re keen to share their experiences — for many, it’s even their first review. People who read these reviews arrive excited to stay at our hotel and are then inspired to write us a review after their stay.”
Pinto also uses Management Responses to make a lasting impression on past guests and influence potential guests to choose his hotel. “Collecting reviews doesn’t guarantee success. We respond to reviews, personalizing our responses and thanking guests,” says Pinto. “We also show how we’re incorporating feedback to improve. For example, we replaced windows that let in too much noise and then contacted each guest who mentioned the noise to let them know the enhancements we made based on their feedback.”
“With all of our reputation management activity, we’ve been climbing the Popularity Ranking for Lisbon. We saw from our analytics that 40% of our traffic was coming from Tripadvisor. We wanted to grow our traffic and get more guests so I purchased Business Advantage and Sponsored Placements,” says Pinto.
Using Business Advantage and Sponsored Placements together helps Pinto amplify Corpo Santo’s presence on Tripadvisor. And the results exceed what he had hoped for. “It’s like winning the lottery. The traffic to our website has grown by 500% with both products. Sponsored Placements has expanded our reach — we’ve received roughly 69,000 impressions in 6 months with the ads and gotten more clicks to our property listing,” Pinto explains. “And thanks to Business Advantage, our direct bookings have increased — and we’re achieving a 90% occupancy rate.“
“We execute our Tripadvisor strategy every day — using Review Express, responding to reviews, and growing our business with both Business Advantage and Sponsored Placements. These tools, along with our focus on providing high-quality service, have resulted in Corpo Santo’s success,” shares Pinto. “The investment in Tripadvisor is minimal compared to the revenue we’ve gained. Tripadvisor has had a huge impact on our small property’s performance.”
