Social medias : a key new tool for customers and hospitality companies

With the fast growth of new technologies, our habits have significantly changed during the last decades. Thanks to the Internet development, we now have a large amount of different source of information. In the tourism industry, social medias have proved that they have a real impact on customer decision-making process, but do also constitute a real opportunity for companies.

On a customer point of view, Social Medias has changed the way customers search for information and determine where they will stay. During the last decade, we observed a “phenomenal increase in travellers using customer reviews on social media websites such as Tripadvisor in their search for information about hotels” (Mc Carthy L., Stock D., Verma R., 2010).

A study conducted by these three authors allows us to determine different trends. First of all, it shows us that the leisure travellers are more likely to use that information than business travellers. Indeed, business travellers often follow the choice of their companies and keep using search engines or Online Travel Agents (OTAs). It is also relevant in this study that the word-of-mouth from friends or family has a strong impact on a hotel perception in customers’ mind (see table below). Social Medias posts can be considered as extension of this word-of-mouth which could explain the importance of these new tools, which represents key information sources for leisure travellers. (Mc Carthy L., Stock D., Verma R., 2010).

Source : How travellers use online and Social Media Channels
to make hotel-choice decisions 

On top of that, the study highlights the importance of Social Media by analysing the likelihood that customers will choose a hotel depending whether it has positive or negative reviews. The study results differentiate the diverse standings of the hotels but as the results are surprisingly similar, we decide not to do so. The likelihood of guests booking a hotel that have negative reviews is under 2.5 chances out of five whereas for a hotel which has positive comments, chances are between 3.5 and 4 out of five. This makes a huge difference in term of image and companies have to maintain their good online reputation.

Finally, at the opposite of the often-repeated factoid that unsatisfied guests are more likely to comment compare to satisfied ones, the study came to the conclusion that there are three chances out of five that a customer will post a comment after his stay whether his experience was positive or negative. It creates data about hotels that companies are not able to control and that can have a huge impact on their attractiveness for potential customers. Stuart Greif said: “social media constitute a focus group of millions of people who provide information without being prompted”.

The table above also demonstrates that OTAs, travel-related websites or search engines remains the main sources of information. This is linked to the fact that customers are not able to do their bookings directly via social medias. It influences a lot the late stage of the decision-making process where customers will gravitate towards a more tightly defined set of channels where they will have the opportunity to finalize their choice (Mc Carthy L., Stock D., Verma R., 2010). There is here a real challenge for companies to optimize their use of social medias by using them as distribution channels.

Customer relationship management is already a major aspect of social media as it allows companies to improve their customer services at a modest cost. (Wooden M.). This is extremely important to respond to customers’ post and some companies like McDonald’s, have a real work to do as “someone is posting or talking about the firm every seven seconds on average” (Mc Carthy L., Stock D., Verma R., 2010).

Companies also use social medias in order to promote themselves through online campaign. For example, RCI has created YouTube “webisodes” regarding its flag-ship Oasis of the Seas, which had received 700,000 hits as of his speech in October 2010.

Social medias have changed the relationship between companies and customers. Customers have now access to new relevant sources of information in their decision-making process, while companies have to deal with non-entire controlled tools of promotion. 

Bonetto Thomas & Bunoz Nicolas

2010: Mc Carthy L., Stock D., Verma R., 2010. How travellers use online and Social Media Channels to make hotel-choice decisions, Cornell Hospitality Report

Social Media, Find your way!

Have you ever wondered which Social Media to use?
Have you ever felt lost in the middle of the different possibilities?

This guide created by CMO.com, offers the possibility to choose the right Social Media for your purpose. 10 different Social Media are reviewed in this guide. From Twitter to Reddit, you will find valuable information as to which best suits your goal. Whether you are looking for brand awareness or search engine optimization (SEO), the CMO social landscape table categorizes the Social Media as follows: good at doing it, OK or Bad. Hence, at a glance, you are able to know that Facebook and Twitter will help you with brand exposure and customer communication but will not only be of any help if what you are looking for is SEO.
You also learn that YouTube helps you "build links back to your site" and that "videos rank high". Digg, a news site, also indexes the stories quickly, therefore enhancing your SEO.

In our opinion, this table is a great tool for those launching themselves into the Social Media experience.
In a previous article, we had showed you soime of the best Social Media campaigns out there. Thanks to this table you will be able to organize your next campaign with more efficiency.

So print it out and share it with your co-workers, because Social Media is here to stay!

Travel is about telling stories: the use of social media

During the ITB exhibition in Berlin last week, we had the chance to attend the conference “How to seduce your consumers to your destination”. Keith Bellows, the editor-in-chief of the National Geographic, shared his experience about the influence of social media and called attention to the content provided by a destination. He said that a destination should offer slow, deep, personal and alternative messages to seduce consumers. Indeed, today it is not sufficient to deliver content. The aim, now, is to bring content that tells a story, like the article of Michael Cohn highlighting: http://rethinkingsocialmedia.com/content-that-tells-a-story.

To be effective, a business should be persuasive and build trust with its consumers according to the article, “the success of your business using social media is based on the relationships that you develop and maintain”. Best businesses’ contents are those that tell stories. Stories can illustrate businesses’ point of view by setting the testimony of a lambda customer with whom readers could easily identify. In other words, by offering high-quality, excitement, creativity, educational content, a business could have the opportunity to convince people. The goal here is to touch the audience by “enhancing, sharing, internalizing, understanding, engaging” content. Words, images, videos, events are such tools which allow to bring sense at a personal level and tell a story.

What are the implications for the use of social media in the travel industry? Airlines, tour-operators, hotels and DMOs are continuously looking for enhancing their content. Each actors of the sector want to attract people attention, seduce new consumers, etc. They compete on the way they provide content, without really know how to succeed in. Social media has to be used to be closer to consumers, to develop and create lasting relationship with readers.

To promote themselves, some destinations even use bloggers or social media influencers to communicate in a more personal way. Most of the time, they are invited to visit a particular destination, and then, they have the ability to tell their own story, share their own experience, putting the reader at the same level. Thanks to bloggers’ intermediaries the destination is talking with travelers and not talking at them. The advantages of this methods are numerous: since they are already established on the web, bloggers have more facility to touch the audience (Caroline Makepeace, through http://www.bloggingstandards.com/travel-industry-bloggers), their messages are authentic and the destination save money (running a blog is a work you can do everywhere you have internet access and doesn’t cost a lot). Of course, this way of communication doesn’t replace the marketing work done by a destination but it can complement it very well.

This clever use of social media gives more credibility to the destination and can lead to a better integration of the local population. Who can better talk about a destination if not its inhabitants? Blogs offer a place of interaction for travelers and locals that can lead to meetings and a better understanding of the local cultures. Social media can contribute to the principles of sustainable tourism by creating a positive experience for both travelers and inhabitants.

So tell us a story and involve people!