Within
the last years Digital Marketing has become a major instrument for hoteliers to
market their hotels. It includes different mediums such as websites, social
media, mobile devices, diversified online distribution channels, digital
marketing/innovative campaigns and so on. To attract the attention of the
constantly increasing amount of potential clients using digital media and
gathering together in online communities, hoteliers should create a so called
multi- channel digital experience. This means that they should think of a clear
message they would like to send out to their potential clients and afterwards
communicate it consistently throughout all the appropriate digital media
channels. If hoteliers manage to engage their customers through respectively
appropriate digital channels they will be able to keep up with future demands
without having to spend too much on hiring new staff etc.
Thereby creating a website is one of the best
measures for hoteliers to get engaged with their clients and to sell their
services. In this respect, hoteliers are trying to compete for guests by
creating a convincing online presence on Facebook and by engaging their clients
via Twitter, emails, Flickr, YouTube etc. These networks are in trend these
days as customers and consumers have become social travellers and are using one
or more social networking platforms to search, shop and buy. To demonstrate how
one of these social networking platforms could be used to market a hotel we
want to summarize an article about Twitter below:
Whereas
Twitter has already become a common marketing tool in other industries the
hotel industry still discusses its usefulness for marketing purposes. As
Twitter has been around for 5 years and today already counts over 200 million
members the author claims that hoteliers should start considering it as a
marketing tool and compare accompanied costs with resulting benefits. To find
out about how twitter can be used for marketing a hotel as well as to point out
the pros and cons involved the author joined Twitter to conduct his research
and included evidence from hotels which are already experienced in
tweeting. At first, he states that
Twitter has a dynamic of its own which makes it hard for marketers to control
how people finally think about their hotel: Once people get a piece of
information about the hotel, may it originate from the hotel or a private
person or may it be good or bad news, the information can spread almost
exponentially within the network in a few hours. Afterwards, the author
compares the achievement of constantly tweeting hotels in terms of followers
and quantity of content. From 2009 to 2011 the Ritz Carlton which tweets
approximately 5 times a day stopped its PR approach on tweeting. The Millenium
hotel which tweets only once every other day still focuses on PR. The Ritz
Carlton has more than twice as many followers than the Millenium. When compared
to the Joie the Vivre which tweets only once a day, however, the Ritz Carlton
counts 2500 users less. So it does not necessarily mean the more you tweet the
more followers you attract. Thereafter the author tells about weaknesses of
twitter: Hoteliers should for example beware that if someone promises them to
gain a huge follower base once they joined Twitter it may only be a hacker who
forces other users to follow without their agreement. Users are more likely to
follow a business if it generates value for them. This value may be of
intangible or tangible nature. In this respect, a hotelier can for example
offer a free upgrade to those customers who post that they are willing to stay
at the hotel or they can offer time sensitive special offers. Both can in turn
create positive word of mouth.
When asking other experts about their opinion on
twitter as a marketing tool for hotels the author collected the following
advices: Hoteliers shall develop a clear strategy before they decide which
marketing tools to use. So Twitter should only be used if it is conducive.
Besides, tweeting can be used as a means of “humanizing large brands”.
Therefore hotels should engage with their audience in a dialogue rather than
focus on PR. Another hint is that hoteliers should use multiple channels to
communicate their strategy such as email, Facebook, Twitter etc. When investigating if twitter is an
appropriate tool for any hotel in the world the author came to the conclusion
that in most cases it is more likely to generate profits for large hotel chains
rather than for smaller hotels. If hoteliers and their marketing departments
familiarize themselves with the platform of twitter chances are high they can
use it for marketing purposes without having to consult an expert.
In our opinion using multiple digital channels to
market a hotel can be quite effective if the channels used fit to the marketing
strategy of the respective hotel and do not overrun the hotels budget. Hotels
can for example use twitter as a means to get traffic to their web- or facebook
site which contain more content about the hotel. It can also be used to tweet
links that lead to an article about the hotel in the web or encourage the
customers to give feedback. As a hotelier you could for example create posters
and flyers that display a QR code that can be scanned with a smartphone. Once
people scan it it links them to the interactive website of the hotel which in
turn links loyal clients to the twitter site where they are constantly being
informed about the latest bargains.
By: Devanshi Jatania and Jasmin Scherer
Keywords: digital marketing- hotels- twitter- pros and cons- multiple channel integration
Source: http://www.tourism-review.com/travel-tourism-magazine.php:
tourism-review-magazine-january2012-issue (1).pdf; articles Top Five Items in a
Hotel Digital Marketing Strategy and Hotels: Does Twitter Marketing work?,
p.16-20.
http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/Bedroom_g186-Hotel_Room_p14048.html
http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/Internet_g170-Follow_Me_p51442.html
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