Ch’ng is part of the newly-formed TripAdvisor for Business division, which is leading the company’s outreach to the hospitality trade..

“It’s a new division within where we reach out and engage the hospitality and accommodation providers to build relationships and provide them with the ability to respond and better manage their presence on TripAdvisor.

“My role is to spearhead and build out the TA’s Business Listing division for APAC, encouraging hoteliers to sign up for our free owner centre tools as well as Business Listings subscription service to list and empower hotels to engage directly with travelers for bookings.”

Ch’ng has over 20 years of Asia Pacific experience in media, Internet and ICT (Information, communication and technology and was most recently the Managing Director of AC Mediacom. Prior to that, he was the Regional Director for Asia Pacific at The New York Times where he set up NYT’s Asia Pacific operation and was responsible for managing content syndication, licensing and advertising.

Asked why the move into a media vertical like travel, Ch’ng said, “The whole landscape for media has changed significantly with the growth of Internet and explosion of smart phones usage. Social media – Web 2.0 – has become main media in many instances.

“Review sites from cars, plastic surgeons to public toilets have become a key resource or reference channel for users to share experience and make purchasing decisions.

“Social media has shifted much of the influencing power from traditional media to the hands of the similar interest communities. Online media has gone more vertical and offer more depth in areas where traditional media was not able to do effectively.”

Ch’ng sees his new role at Trip Advisor as “to evangelize and let hoteliers know they can participate and respond to reviews of their establishment through our owner centre – that they too have the opportunity to respond and participate in the social communication, especially in reference to their properties”.

“We hope to reach out to them via phone calls, emails, seminars and conferences starting with the hotels chains and working our way to cover the market.

“We want to encourage all hotels, Inns and B&Bs to sign up with our free Owner Centre to update their information (description, pictures, videos) and respond to reviews about their properties.

“Our Owner Centre also allows them to benchmark their performance versus their competitors and the market they are in.”

He said that many hotels still do not know that TripAdvisor offers such a free facility for them to respond to reviews and help them to gauge and benchmark their performance.

“They can also further increase customer direct bookings by subscribing to Business Listings to have their hotel contact information and special offers listed.”

A recent report from Sabre Hospitality Solutions said that TripAdvisor Business Listings yielded strong Return on Investment (ROI) for its hotel clients in 2010.

As reported in a January 2011 Forrester Consulting Total Economic Impact™ study, Sabre hotel clients are receiving an average of US$6 in incremental bookings for every dollar spent.

According to the Forrester Consulting study, which was commissioned by TripAdvisor, Business Listings produced a “very positive 410 percent risk-adjusted Return On Investment and a two-month horizon to recoup the investment” for hotels participating in Sabre Hospitality’s online media buying and planning programme last year.

The study added that TripAdvisor Business Listings is projected to provide incremental bookings of US$4.7 million over a three-year period for Sabre Hospitality’s represented hotels.

Sabre Hospitality’s clients experiencing Business Listings success range in size from four to 720 room hotels, and had notable geographic diversity – 50 percent of properties are located in the US and 50 percent in the EU and APAC.

Ch’ng said hotels could do more to respond to negative reviews. “The key is to recognize any shortcomings, respond appropriately and aim to address and improve on them.

“Travellers want to know how the hotel management responds to criticism, how they address any shortcoming as this will reflect on the attitude of the hotel management toward their customers. It is not so much about the deficiencies but more about how the management intends to address them.”

Asked what TripAdvisor needed to do in this market to gain trust and build relationships with customers, he said, “We have a proprietary monitoring system as well as a content review team that looks into review postings to filter out potential fraudulent postings.

“Through the Owner Centre, hotel can also contact us to highlight any questionable review for our content team to look into. We believe in posting all legitimate reviews – whether good or bad, to provide a more complete picture.”

Ch’ng has also been busy looking for staff to build up his team, reeling off a string of sales positions including tele-sales and market managers.

“Since setting up our APAC office in Singapore end of last year, we have been growing and putting in the resources to better address the market needs and building up our presence. We are looking for smart people that believe in our product and have good understanding of the online and travel space, in particularly for APAC,” he said.