Hotels collect guest reviews from Facebook

With the development of web 2.0, many user-generated content websites have emerged. A famous one concerning the tourism and more precisely the hotel industry is Trip Advisor, created in 2000. This website enables consumers to generate content by posting positive or negative comments about an experience in a hotel, or to search for some feedbacks before purchasing. However, those websites can become a nightmare for hoteliers. Indeed, as those platforms are multiplying, it has become challenging to control what is said about your hotel, the veracity of the content and the legitimacy of the source. Moreover, it is very difficult to make proper answers to the unsatisfied customers in a reasonable delay.

Thanks to a Social Media Marketing Agency, Lodging Interactive, hoteliers might have found a solution to this problem through one of the most active social networks in the world: Facebook. Indeed, in November 2011, the agency announced the integration of its Guest Review System with the social network. This website reaches more than 800 million users across the world, which makes it a powerful communication tool. That is why hotels are now trying to use their Facebook page to collect their customers’ reviews and also to reply to them. By centralizing the comments on their Facebook page, the access is easier for the customers and the hoteliers. It allows better control and a better communication as the hotels can reply directly to the reviews. Furthermore it limits the degree of risk coming from third-party review website.

People are paying more and more attention to online reviews that are now key elements in the customer decision-making process. That is what makes this tool relevant for customers and professionals as the content is more reliable and accessible. Moreover, as the hoteliers can react almost instantaneously, they can use this tool to work on their image, by selecting information they want their customers to receive and by improving their service.

If well used, this Guest Review System can help to improve communication via web 2.0 for the hotel industry, and even make it an essential aspect of hotels’ strategies. However there is a thin line between using the reviews as positive communication and turning around information for the own advantage. Hotel management needs to put in place strict guideline in terms of authenticity in review modification and publication, in order to guarantee truthful reviews. Negative reviews can be seen as an opportunity to publicly justify and apologize for flaws in service and facilities. It needs to be considered that it is a full time job to control and reply to customers reviews, in order to avoid this new platform turning against hotels as a proof of their lack of attention to their customers.

Keywords: Guest Review system, web 2.0, Trip Advisor, Lodging Interactive, internet reviews, hotels

Source: Hotel Marketing. (2011). Hotels collect guest reviews from Facebook. Retrieved January, 27, 2012 from 

http://hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/hotels_collect_guest_reviews_from_facebook

Social media: trends and importance

Social media is really important these days, especially for the tourism industry. In a recent conference (Social Media Talk at World Travel Market in London), Debbie Hindle explained why social media is so important and according to her, the main reason is that it can foster an increase in sales, it creates word of mouth advertising which is priceless in today’s economy and it allows us to study consumer habits. However, social media is not really understood by every manager; many of them can’t grasp its importance. The usefulness and it's potential benefits are based primarily on understanding how to use social media properly. According to us, managers of every age should be up to date concerning the different IT trends because it’s crucial to remain competitive. The youngest generation of managers are making a big difference in the industry because they bring new ideas and concepts. Hindle then presents 6 major trends observed during the past year in the tourism industry

The first trend is the integration of social media and the end of the one-way speech. Social media should be a part of the global marketing and communication strategy and it should be used to create, add value and promote the interaction and commitment of the consumers. The amount of fans on social media is not necessarily a measure of success but interaction is and it’s a key point of social media.

Secondly, another major trend is the information, the socialization and the innovation. Several companies get their inspiration from their customers and social media is the highway for brainstorming between those two parts, because it’s ideal to find consumers information, ideas and advice. For example, Virgin organised a «social marathon» that reunited all the teams responsible for social media in the UK and they had to use Facebook and Twitter for 8 hours. Through this initiative, Virgin wanted to encourage the commitment of their fans by asking for their help to improve the business and to stimulate innovation. Other companies should implement this technique in order to share knowledge and obtain benefits from it. Innovation is possible by putting together many internal and external ideas.

  source: http://www.virgin.com/media-and-mobile/news/virgin-to-run-first-ever-social-marathon

The third idea is the social revolution of commerce. These days, e-commerce is present on social media and it’s a new way of distribution. Some companies in the tourism industry offer the option to reserve or purchase directly on social media. For example, it’s now possible to reserve a hotel room on the Facebook page of the Las Vegas Hilton.

  source: http://www.facebook.com/LasVegasHilton

The fourth trend is about the importance of social mobility. Indeed, most of the travelers used their smartphones during their last trip, mostly to stay in contact with their friends and family or to post some pictures on Facebook. The main issue is the roaming charges that are excessive with most of the mobile companies. We think that they should adapt their services to the market by considering consumers who travel around the world with their smartphones.

The fifth trend is about the emerging number of bloggers all around the network. Effectively, we can now find a blog about anything we can possibly imagine. Five types of bloggers are distinguishable: “le professionnel” who is a full time blogger, “l’autonome” who blogs on precise subjects as a journalist or consultant, “le passionné” who writes just for fun and to communicate his passions, “le pigiste” contributes to many different blogs. The last type of blogger is called “le collaborateur” and he writes neutral content for many different companies.

source: https://plus.google.com/

The last trend concerned the importance of social media for search engines organizations. Recently, Google proposed to a restricted number of users to incorporate their new social media platform: Google+. It shows that these days the social network is priceless and has undeniable power. In our opinion, it was mandatory for Google to follow social media such as Facebook or Twitter to remain competitive. The reputation of Google is well established and we think it won’t be long before Google + becomes the most popular social media platform. We have no doubt that social media is here to stay!

Keywords: social media, trend, blogger, IT, innovation.

Source: Racine, Amélie (2011, december 13th). Médias sociaux 2011: leur importance et quelques tendances (compte rendu de conférence): http://veilletourisme.ca/2011/12/13/medias-sociaux-2011-leur-importance-et-quelques-tendances-compte-rendu-de-conference/

LUXURY HOTELS: SMS as a direct route to affluent consumers

   

Over the years, consumers have become less receptive to traditional marketing supports and are increasingly using “mobile devices, social media and new marketing”. Moreover, they are more likely to favor more personalized and customized marketing. Thus, marketers need to adapt to this new behavior and find new ways to attract customers. For such, SMS messages have become a new marketing tool.

In its different parts, this article aims to explain why and how luxury marketers and luxury brands and hotels should use SMS messaging to attract and retain more customers.

    Knowing the current context of economic crisis keeps consumers from spending money, marketers have to innovate and be more creative. SMS messaging represents a good and effective tool since it cheaper than traditional forms of marketing and directly targets and reaches the customer. Indeed, “research shows that […] 90 percent of all messages written are sent and read within three minutes, with more than 99 percent of all text messages being read by the recipient”.


  As previously said, consumers are being more receptive to customized messages received at a relevant time. It offers marketers six advantages: “relevancy”, “actionability”, “immediacy”, “ubiquity”, “simplicity”, and “versatility”.
Indeed, text messages are directly relevant to the customer’s needs and expectations and enable quick responding and dialogue. Moreover, these short messages can reach “over 70 percent of the global population” and enable marketers to communicate about everything.
SMS messaging has other benefits. For instance, it can have consumers going either on-line simply by clicking on a html link sent in the message, or drive them directly in stores to take advantage of the promotion.

However, in order to be efficient and reliable, it is important that SMS messaging contains four elements.
The first one is to have a complete and reliable customer database or a “contact distribution list” brands that hotels can obtain by having consumers to register online or fill-in surveys.
Then, determine the customers’ needs and expectations through their “account histories”. It enables the messages to be sent directly to the targeted customers.
The third step is to create a short, concise and simple SMS message (no longer than 160 characters).
And finally, the fifth element is to measure the impact of the campaign’s success. 

    The brands who implemented this kind of new marketing campaigns have been successful in noticing increasing sales. Therefore, we can assume that SMS messaging campaigns are effective since mobile devices are universal and immediate communication tools. However, it is essential that marketers keep in mind the various elements that are required for the campaigns to be efficient.  

Nevertheless, disadvantage of this kind of marketing is that people might be resilient to fill-in online questionnaires or might just not take the time to complete them correctly. Thus, it could lead to send those consumers text messages that are not well adapted to their needs and expectations. Moreover, some consumers might simply delete the message, thinking it is advertising, without even reading it. 

Key words: SMS messaging, marketing, mobile communication, luxury brands and hotels

Resource: Hutzler, K. (2012, January). Luxury Hotels: SMS As A Direct Route To Affluent Consumers. Retrieved from Tourism-Review.com: http://www.tourism-review.com/travel-tourism-magazine-marketing-through-sms-reaches-luxury-hotels-article1713

Kayak: iPhone users buy travel online, Android not so much

Kayak, a travel search service company, whose mobile applications have achieved more than 10 million downloads, among of which, iPhone and Android apps are taking the first the runner-up place. As Kayak’s co-founder and chief technology officer Paul English said, People who have iPhones actually buy travel online and people who have Androids don’t really. iPhone users show more loyalty and click through than its Android users.

(Source: Kayak website)

Among the findings in a user survey regarding the different characteristics between iPhone/iOS users and Android users launched by Hunch, Kayak find the listed items below are more likely to have influenced the consumption behaviors demonstrated before.

Ø  iPhone/iOS users—more femals in their ranks, older, more income, higer level of education, more likely to have their American Express Credit Card in their wallets or purses.

Ø  iPhone/iOS users—“15% more likely to have taken a vacation in the last six months”and 55% more likely to have used their frequent flyer miles to have taken several free rewards flights during 2011

Android users —“36% more likely to not remember their last vacation”

 (Source: Hunch)

In the context of IT in tourism industry, it is not a fresh concept for tourism suppliers such as airlines, hotels and travel agencies, to develop mobile applications. The purposes of implementing some very in technologies are not only just facilitating the information-searching process for customers. The eventual results these companies want to see are successfully attracting customers to buy travel products online by their cell-phones and enlarge their profit margin. Otherwise, personally thinking, if the IT solutions cannot bring at least an acceptable revenue number for a company, it would be more or less meaningless to use the new technologies cause sometimes the introducing and developing fee is not cheap. For Kayak, which searches many travel sites for customers, earns money from the commissions of bookings and adds. If it can attract a large amount of mobile users to book online, the profit margin would be promising.

It is a good thing for Kayak to identify which group of its mobile applications users is more likely to buy travel online and which not too much. The findings show Kayak the aspects they may address more consideration on in the future. It is also recommended to make some reasonable adjustments to the mobile application according to differentiated attributes and consuming habits. Here below are some recommendations.

Ø  “35% Andorid users more likely to pass the time waiting a long line by texting”, while 50% iPhone/iOS users by checking emails. (Source: Hunch)

Kayak can send discount information or other alerts regularly to Android users by messages and iPhone/iOS users by emails.

Ø  It is also possible to simplify the travel information illustrating pattern, for example focusing on listing the more economical deals at first.

Posted by Yonger YU & Zhe WANG

Source:

1.Kayak: iPhone users buy travel online, Android not so much. 27 January 2012 by Dennis Schaal.

http://www.tnooz.com/2012/01/27/mobile/kayak-iphone-users-buy-travel-online-android-not-so-much/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Tnooz+%28Tnooz%29

2.Android vs iPhone: Battle of the Mobile Operating Systems.

http://blog.hunch.com/?p=51781

3.Kayak website. http://www.kayak.com/mobile

Digital Meetings Take Off

                                                                                     

HIGHLIGHTS

As research and investment are going on a fast track, the pharmaceutical industry needs new tools to share feedback and improve healthcare products.

Image by: www.eluxurytouch.com

Share feedback and ideas through face-to-face meetings, but this is not fast enough, they need to share information and knowledge faster, to keep up with innovation and research.

                  

Digital meetings would allow practitioner to communicate more instantaneously, more often, with less costs. It can react to market changes almost instantaneously, which allows them to be more competitive.

Know your venues 

Today’s meeting organizer has two general digital venue options: online conferencing (also referred to as webcasting); and Web-based discussion forums:

-Web casting or online conferencing, which is closer to traditional meetings since the participants are able to see the speaker in live and can interact with him either by phone lines (when low number of participants) or via questions sent to the moderator and answered by the speaker (for larger meetings).

-Web-based discussions forums which resemble an online community. Participants have to be invited to be member of the forum in which they can create their own profile and discuss about topics managed by moderators, who ensure that participants are not going the wrong direction.

This new type of venue offers multiple advantages: 

• It can be planned in a shorter time frame
• Eliminate the costs and hassle of travel and hotel logistics. It has no need to rent a venue, to accommodate the participants
• It allows to having a greater audience. Comparing to traditional meeting, not all the attendees of the digital meeting need to be invited
• It is accessible through numerous electronic devices (computers, mobile phone, tablets) thus from more different places worldwide
• It allows getting more feedback from participants than during traditional meetings. Moderators can perceive if the discussion is going the wrong way more quickly which allow him to be more effective
• Encourage interactions through an online community
• Provide the broadest amount of flexibility, convenience
• Maximize regulatory transparency on the topics

Another advantage is that as medical teams don’t need much time to organize a meeting with digital venues, they can better manage the length of the discussion and get rapid feedback about urgent topics easily.

Image by: Smartmeeting.com

The main inconvenient is that it is much more difficult to create relationships between participants; there are not many opportunities for networking. Plus the issue of confidentiality is raised when using this type of venues.

Determining the mix of venues 

The challenge is to determine which venues are more appropriate for the discussions the event planner wants to hold. It is a common mistake to believe that event planner must rely only on one. Event planners tend to think it is more difficult go through digital venues as they don’t really know how to manage it. But in fact they are much more convenient from an administrative and legal point of view than traditional venues.  

However it might be more difficult to drawn participants to a meeting through digital venues, to get them interested and encourage them to stay and keep discussing about the topic.

To sum up, nothing can replace the value of face-to-face meeting. However, digital meeting offers a lot of benefits to participants with flexibility and convenience. All three venues—live, webcast, online community—have their place and meeting planners should look to understand and integrate all three into a successful program as needed. Each venue has its strengths and weaknesses, and these can be aligned with the program’s goals.  

Key word: digital meeting, event planning, event planner, pharmaceutical industry

Resource: Success Strategies for Digital Meetings

                http://meetingsnet.com/technology/success-strategies-for-digital-meetings-1114/#ixzz1kML85bI3

Posted by: Miki XIE, France ALLEMANDI 

Digital Marketing in the Hotel Industry- Twitter as a Marketing Tool for Hoteliers

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

Samsung and VisitBritain appeal to UK visitors with the "Best of Britain" app.

On July, 27^th 2012, London will welcome the summer Olympic and Paralympic Games. Many visitors are expected to come especially for this event as well as visiting Britain. Besides the National Tourism Agency estimates around 30,7 millions of visitors in Britain in 2012. Taking these facts into consideration VisitBritain & Samsung, official partner of the OG, decided to launch a mobile application for Samsung devices’ users. The main objective is not only to enhance visitors’ experience during the Games but also on the long term. Indeed more and more smartphone users utilize their device for travel and tourism purpose.

The mobile application:  “Best of Britain”

Description: this app is an “official guide to the best places to visit around Britain, provided by Visit Britain, Britain’s national tourism agency in partnership with Samsung. Browse in detail a host of exciting places and events for you to visit around Britain using the easy to use search, map navigation or just by browsing categories.”  This app is free and available for Samsung users and the Android market.           

Source: https://market.android.com

The key Features:

- Near Me – Never again will you miss an experience that’s right in front of you or not far away.
- Eating & Drinking – Hungry, thirsty, vegetarian, pescatarian, search the best in British cuisine and use the map to direct you straight there.
- Search – Whether it’s the finest British tea or the best place to hire a surfboard, everything is available at the slide of a screen.
- Destination Guide - An in-depth guide to the hundreds of must-see villages, towns and cities around the UK.
- Top 10 – Rely on dozens of Top 10 lists to discover the best shops, restaurants, bars, and explore the very best of your favorite activities.

Be curious and click on the link just bellow to watch a demonstration of the app.

http://www.visitbritain.tv/regions/best-of-britain-from-samsung-visitbritain.html

 

What are the benefits?

It is clear that this app will provide benefits for the National Tourism Agency (VisitBritain), travellers and Samsung. Indeed this tool will help the agency to showcase the country and attract more potential visitors. Besides it enables travellers to create their own experience and also to fully enjoy and share their OG experience. This application promotes places that are not usually visited such as museums, attractions, restaurants, bars, arts, entertainment and nightlife. The results of this launch will enable Samsung to test the efficiency of this tool and may develop it for any other host country for the next OG. The main objective is to boost the showcase of the hosting country.

Keywords: Britain, destination, smartphone, mobile application, Olympic Games 2012.

Source: Travel Daily News. (2012). Samsung and VisitBritain appeal to UK visitors with the "Best of Britain" app. Retrieved January, 25, 2012 from http://www.traveldailynews.com/pages/show_page/47358--Samsung-and-VisitBritain-appeal-to-UK-visitors-with-the-%22Best-of-Britain%22-app

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.visitbritain.widget&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS52aXNpdGJyaXRhaW4ud2lkZ2V0Il0.

Online booking system of China railways

Spring Festival holiday began on January 22nd, 2012 in China. This 7-day period for employees is the longest holiday of a year. During the holiday, people usually go back their hometown for a sweet gather of family or go to travel for a good relax. Apparently, large amount of travelling people resulted in travel rush, which is also known as the largest global “short-term migration”. Spring Festival travel rush usually starts from 15 days before till 25 days after the first day of Spring Festival. Great transportation problems were raised every year such as train delay, travellers stranded and difficulty in buying train ticket.

Today, our focus is ticket reservation system, as it is relevant to online booking system in tourism. Apart from railway station, designated ticket office and travel agency, and after the telephone booking available for High Speed Trains, people now can also buy all train tickets online and by telephone this year. Passengers can buy ticket online with China Railway Customer Service Center (CRCSC) (www.12306.cn) since Jun.1st 2011. Employment of IT in booking and selling tickets largely relieve the load of bricks-and-mortar.

From the year 2012, real-name policy is implemented both in buying train tickets and checking-in.

With valid ID, people can book tickets for 1-10 days advance (1-12 days in advance for 2012 Spring Festival Rush). An e-currency payment service (like PayPal) is a must for purchasing online. Main bank cards stipulated by China UnionPay support the online secure payment.

The pilot project is now practicing in 50 stations includes Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Chengdu and their subordinates. The passenger's identity information is printed on the ticket. Passengers need to take their valid travel documents with the train tickets and check-in in those stations.

The online reservation service is quite necessary nowadays. It is a trend of the world. This new online real-name booking system will relieve the long queues in front of ticket offices and will better the situation of scalpers. However, the majority of the passengers during the Spring Festival Rush are migrant rural workers. They work hard for days and nights all the year round. Few of them ever get good education. The online reservation may not be very practical for them. And the booking system didn’t work very well. It showed up paralysis from time to time. According to staff in network department of CRCSC, there are 100 thousand people booking online per second and the peak second is 5 million people.

Source:

http://www.travelchinaguide.com/china-trains/spring-festival-rush.htm