REPORT: CONFERENCING & EVENTS
http://www.insider.co.uk March 2020 INSIDER 57
ScottishPower in its commitment
to electrical vehicle charging? That
might put the whole response
on to a much faster trajectory so
Glasgow and Scottish companies
are right in the heart of getting
solutions and much quicker than
other parts of the world.
“Who knows? But again it could
be incalculable if we start providing
solutions because we’re right at the
centre of attention.”
However it is more than just
Glasgow and COP26 that has been
attracting international attention.
International investors have
done a series of deals on hotels in
Scotland in recent months.
Private equity investors AJ
Capital Partners acquired the
iconic Russacks Hotel in St
Andrews and the Marine Hotel
and Spa in North Berwick. Brodies,
the law firm, that advised on
those purchases also did so on the
acquisition of the Fairmont Hotel
in St Andrews by Great Century,
a partner of Hong Kong property
firm Lai Sun Group. Brodies,
which has appointed hotel industry
specialist Bob Asher, said it had
advised on hotel deals worth more
than £170m in the three months to
IN FOCUS: Image conscious the end of February. ■Hotels are missing out on custom by failing to
provide professional photographs of their rooms
on booking websites, according to research led by
Ben Marder of University of Edinburgh Business
School, in collaboration with Copenhagen
Business School, University of Southampton and
King’s College.
Marder, a senior lecturer in Marketing, and
his colleagues analysed travel sites including
TripAdvisor to see whether the quality of
photography of a hotel made a difference to a
customer’s choice.
He explains: “A student of mine was complaining
that when looking to book a hotel they’d find one
that sounded good but would click on the photos
posted by previous guests – probably posted by
guests who’d enjoyed their stay and they wanted
to be nice – but these pictures were terrible and as
a result they chose not to go to that hotel.
“We wanted to see the effect of viewing different
types of photos when thinking of booking a hotel.”
Tourists searching for information about
destinations on online review sites see two
different photograph aesthetics: professional,
produced by destination managers, and amateur,
generated by travellers. While the former is
glossy and sharp, the latter is often grainy and
overexposed.
“What we found is that generally if you lookat guest photos the hotel is much less visually
appealing and you’re much less likely to book.
There was some suggestion that the negative
effect of a less-than-flattering guest photo
can be mitigated if accompanied by a really
positive review but in general the message is
image matters.”
So despite most of us knowing a professional
photograph might hide reality, we still fall for it?
“That’s right. We thought people may identify
with what’s called the mess of humanity, the
reality of guest photos, but that wasn’t the case.
It’s less of an issue for big hotel chains. But locallyrun hotels who may have decent photos taken
themselves are still relying heavily on guest photos
on platforms such as TripAdvisor so the impact is
they are potentially missing out on business.”
If you’re a hotel business, what should you do?
“Deleting unflattering guest photos comes with
a bunch of issues so maybe don’t go there. The real
take-home message is that when I was looking
through TripAdvisor and other sites, there are lots
of hotels out there that don’t have professional
photographs. That’s a really bad idea! Small hotels
should invest in professional photography. People
are only going to look through so many photos
so as long as you have lots of professional ones
to outnumber the amateur ones you’ll create the
right impression.
“Other advice I’d give is that guests often want to
thank the hotel with a nice photo but maybe what
they post doesn’t do the hotel any favours. So you
could encourage guests to take better photos,
such as when they enter the room there’s a note
on the bed saying it’s great to take a photo now.
By the window is the best place to take a picture
of the room – point that out. Maybe even the staff
could offer to take photos for the guests.
“In the social media age we want to show we’ve
had a good time so helping guests show their
stay in the best light helps both the traveller and
the business.”Amateur photos can hit hotel bookings
Gillian Docherty, chief
executive of DataLab
which organises the
DataFest speaking at last
year’s eventConversational artificial intelligence (AI), robotics,
machine learning and ethics and data science are some
of the topics being debated at the Data Summit.
The two-day event, which is the culmination of the
two-week DataFest20, will take place at The Assembly
Rooms in Edinburgh on 19 and 20 March.
The speakers include Tim Peake, the British astronaut;
Caroline Criado-Perez, author of Invisible Women; Kevin
Fong, the broadcaster and emergency services doctor
and Shannon Vallor, chair in the Ethics of Data and
Artificial Intelligence at Edinburgh Futures Institute.IN FOCUS: Datafest20