When a report is produced annually, significant changes between one edition and the next are always worth highlighting, even more so when it reinforces the importance of Asian travellers.
Brand Karma, a Singapore-based digital agency, has released -The Luxury Traveller and Social Media to coincide with the big luxury trade show ILTM Americas taking place in Mexico late this month.
The business analyses the social media footprint of more than 350,000 luxury hotels worldwide to come up with local, regional and global insights.
One of the stand-out global findings is that the number of reviews written about luxury hotels has rocketed by 60% between 2012 and 2013.
So who is shouting the loudest about their luxury trips? “Asian travellers,” says the report, “are now the stand-out leaders, representing 41% of all luxury hotel reviews globally.”
Factor in that Chinese outbound travel is likely to continuing growing year-on-year, and the importance for luxury hotels to make sure that there Chinese guests say good things online becomes paramount.
One caveat is that Asian travellers tend to use regional social channels rather than global ones, so there is a feeling that, long-term, reviews on C-Trip and Dao Dao will matter the most.
North America and Europe have seen big drops in their overall share, dropping by 14% and 11% respectively. Volumes are still significant – 33% and 16% – if the relative importance is diminished.
For its target audience in the Americas, the study shows how Latin America and North Americans differ:
As an aside, the report suggests that the FIFA World Cup 2014, held in Brazil this summer, was a success in terms of tourism. Despite the hikes in room rates, social guest satisfaction was 15% higher than the same period last year.
There are also detailed breakdowns of the guest experience by review keywords, market segmentation of the American continent and an analysis of named luxury hotels.
Brand Karma has released the report’s highlights as a Buzzfeed-y meme-based release which contains links to the downloadable report.
DISCLOSURE The author also works on a retained basis for World Travel Market which is owned by the same parent company ( Reed Travel Exhibitions) as ILTM.
