#FutureFridays
The days of convincing guests with one-on-one sales pitches are over. Today, Instagram, Facebook, and online reviews shape traveler decisions more than any salesperson ever could.
As Alam Khan, VP of Sales at The Clarks Hotels & Resorts, explains, even travel agents now prioritize online ratings over direct recommendations. The real question isn’t what you say about your hotel—it’s what the internet says about you.
In a world where travelers trust review scores, influencer posts, and digital word-of-mouth, hotels must rethink their approach. Are you influencing the right conversations? Are your ratings building confidence?
The shift is massive—and it’s happening fast.
#HospitalityTrends#HotelMarketing#OnlineReputation#TravelerBehavior#RateGain
It's not working because the customer is not conventional. Now he's getting inspired more by Instagrams and Facebooks of the world than actually a real sales guy. For example, earlier it was all one to one dealings. What the sales guys saying they would agree there was level of confidence. Today the level of confidence has shifted to online. OK, what are your review scores? And the fact of the matter is even a travel agent is talking the same language. Initially it was only the customer who was getting digitalized. Now even the travel and says. You know that hotel, you were saying it's very good, but on Xota or on Iota, which score is very poor? Would my customer be happy? So there is a huge, huge paradigm shift in the way people think, the way people choose and the way people perceive your product. You today cannot go and say I have a great product. Nobody is going to listen to you. We have to stop saying that we stopped. Actually, you go and tell people I have a great product, I have great food, I have great this, I have great that nobody's interested. And this is, and this is all happening because of the penetration of Internet, especially in our country, because a lot of people have started evolving. Now they see the usage of. Smartphones the availability of excellent bandwidth in the country. Yeah, and and everybody wants to do it themselves. They they can get influenced through an Instagram or an influencer, but not necessarily they would like to speak to somebody. Like it was the story of five, 6-7 years back that you will find out somebody talk to them. Have you gone them? People are not communicating. They communication more from offline has completely shifted to online. But what is it that the world is talking about? The Internet world, I mean.
