Manuela Bortolotti, Destination Support at Trentino Marketing, shares best practices of implementing TrustYou for destination tourism development in this interview.
What are the most obvious results of implementing the TrustYou platform and creating Trentino Suite?
TM’s use of the platform has made it possible to analyze, over time, the performance of accommodations that have received reviews based on scope or facility type. The Reports set up were always shared with the territory so that APTs/DMOs could have feedback concerning the individual scope and structure and support their operators in their growth path. Operators were provided with the widget to implement on their site and improve the traveler experience. In “Trentino Suite,” our portal dedicated to Trentino operators, contextual content was included for the importance of reviews, tips on management, and a space where to download their own widget. In addition, accommodation facilities have the Trentino Operator Dashboard at their disposal, a personalized space for each facility where they find the graphic summary of their performance.
Private apartments and vacation homes in the Trentino system are the ones that need the most support. At the moment, out of 2000 apartments, about 250 constantly receive reviews.
Many apartments are still managed by private individuals without advanced tools, while owners of new apartments tend to equip themselves with technology right away and are often active on booking portals and review platforms.
The use of TrustYou on VisitTrentino.info and on destination portals has helped to offer important information concerning the “value attributed by customers to the facility,” improving the experience at the time of guest research. Facilities with reviews enjoy greater visibility on our portals, and Trentino emerges as a very attractive destination overall. Facilities that followed the advice of “Trentino Suite” received positive feedback, improved their score, and began to adopt a smarter pricing strategy, thanks to the value recognized by their guests.
What are the most common critical issues that emerged from guest reviews?
One of the things we are working on most at the Trentino level is the improvement of Internet connectivity in tourist resorts. Now, free wi-fi is available in the majority of mountain refuges. We aim to achieve more homogeneous coverage and have more and more facilities offering free wi-fi. Today, we have more than 800 facilities that claim to offer free wi-fi (throughout the facility or at least in common areas). We are encouraging our operators to offer this service and update the information on our portals since it is enhanced with a dedicated filter.
What kind of support does Trentino Marketing offer to operators for improving the management of online reviews?
We have invested heavily in creating a system that generates review widgets for more than 5,000 facilities, covering the costs even for those that, to date, do not have them or do not reach the minimum number to score. However, only 500 have implemented it on their site. Another aspect to be taken care of more is the replication rate of our operators to the reviews. At the moment, we are around 20% at the Trentino level. For this reason, we are considering, together with DMOs, to review part of this activity by improving communication and experimenting with new services to stimulate the growth of operators on this topic:
- Collecting feedback through customized surveys with direct follow-up to provide helpful and targeted feedback to facilities.
- Support and advice in handling review responses, turning negative feedback into opportunities for improvement, and demonstrating continued customer focus.
- Organizing webinars and on-site meetings with APTs/DMOs to educate facilities on the proper handling of reviews and stimulate the use of the widget on their site.
What significant advances have you seen in technology and management among the different accommodations?
In recent years, Trentino has invested heavily in advanced technologies and integrated systems by promoting a culture of information, data collection, and predictive analytics in order to adopt sales strategies in a structured and proactive manner.
Thanks to the continuing evolving mapping of the systems adopted by individual accommodations, we are engaging the various PMS providers to develop integration with the Trentino Guest Card for issuing the card directly from the management system, the HBenchmark system for analyzing occupancy data, prices, channels at the level of individual accommodations, scope, and Trentino and Ispat data communication. These activities allow us to return, in the Trentino Suite, timely and strategic information. This is also a vital support when they have to evaluate which technologies to use to improve digitization.
As TrustYou transitions to the new Customer Experience Platform (CXP), new integration opportunities emerge. Facilitating the use of TrustYou through agreements with PMS providers could significantly improve service for our end customers, make facility management more efficient, and improve the overall guest experience.
Overall, facilities are responding well, and APTs/DMOs are beginning to reap the benefits of the customized coaching and mentoring dedicated to their partner operators.
Still talking about management process innovation, do you already propose tools that can help operators in this regard?
In 2020, we developed the “Trentino Operator Dashboard”: this is a space that each facility has available where data from the various sources available to Trentino are returned in order to have a complete and increasingly timely view of the indicators on the online presence of their facility, often, compared with the scope of reference and all of Trentino. Facilities can update information using adopted digital tools, facilitating mapping and contributing responsibly to data accuracy.
To boost the use of the “Trentino Operator Dashboard,” we are introducing new content to simplify the work of operators and stimulate them to enter their sections systematically. From our side, it is very important to listen to the needs of all operators and provide relevant content. In the upcoming months, we will focus more on short-term rental operators because demand is constantly increasing, and it is necessary to identify new tools that can support and simplify their activities. We have activated a test project with the Trento APT to use a QR Code linked to a Survey that would facilitate guests to give their feedback and thus increase the collection of satisfaction reviews. Based on the test results, we will evaluate together with the APT/DMOs whether and how to extend the project to the whole industry.
