Hospitality sector hikes social media spend for biz growth

Hospitality companies appear to be significantly increasing their social media spends. The lure of customer engagement is so high that most are exploring disruptive opportunities for growth in the digital arena.

Zafar Rais, CEO, MindShift Interactive, a digital outreach agency, says that social media empowers corporates to engage with the right audience in a sustained manner, constantly engaging and increasing influence.

Irfan Mirza, Director, VM Salgaocar Institute of International Hospitality Education, adds that social media has become an effective tool to reach out to a wider audience from all over the world. ``In USA, 90 per cent of hotels have a Facebook page, and this trend is rising in India as well. It creates loyalty, raises visibility and attracts new guests.''

Tripti Lochan, CEO, VML, a digital marketing and advertising agency, part of the WPP Group, adds, ``People tend to travel to places where we know our Instragrams will look awesome. With social media influencing even a destination choice for consumers, to Google maps being the de-facto navigator, hospitality brands are using digital to speak to the consumer at every stage of the travel cycle, from the dreaming of vacation, to post vacation sharing.''

Social change

The use of social media has become widespread, and travellers consistently use the media to either brag about their great experiences or express displeasure. Leaders within the hospitality industry have realised that they cannot ignore the impact of the new internet phenomenon on their businesses.

Tata-backed Indian Hotels Company Limited has decided to adopt digital and social media to expand the Taj brand. Managing Director and CEO Rakesh Sarna said, ``We have restructured the organisation and have taken a left turn from our traditional sales and marketing, since the focus is to meet the digital world today.''

The 112-year-old iconic hospitality chain is engaging with social media, and ensuring search engine optimisation and e-commerce to connect with different market segments.

With information moving at the speed of light, Salgaocar Institute's Mirza points out that social media plays ``a vital role in providing business to hotel chains, much more than any other form.'' Adds Arashdeep Sandhu, Head, MindShift Metrics, ``It is no secret that social media has revolutionised how we market hotels online. Never before has it been so easy to reach so many, so inexpensively.''

In a bid to increase the JW Marriott brand recall, the hospitality major rolled out #MarriottChefChat with Chef Savio Fernandes. Though the aim was to promote the Valentine Day celebration and treats, the hotel decided to create an engagement opportunity with its followers.

Marriott International, Inc, a leading hospitality company with more than 4,100 properties and 18 brands across 79 countries, had an interesting concept by Marriott International Asia Pacific. Two digital innovations were unveiled, Meetings Imagined (MeetingsImagined.com) and a `Meeting Services' app.

Touted as the first-of-their-kind in the industry, the innovations are intended to assist planners and organisers, and provide expert tips on everything related to meetings, including networking activities, maximizing social media exposure, and creating the right meeting environment. Meetings Imagined is to be launched across approximately 100 properties throughout Asia Pacific, and 13 fully serviced Marriott International properties in India.

As Peggy Fang Roe, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, Asia Pacific at Marriott International noted, the hospitality chain has been studying the way planners interface with hotels when they organise events. ``We have mapped out the planners' journey, from the moment they have a need for a meeting, all the way through to how they search, book, plan and design the meeting. We aspire to provide something different to address the milestones, and pain points, in the planners' journey.''

Meetings Imagined is an online platform modelled on Pinterest.com and the Chinese Huaban.com online forum.

Marriott campaign

The JW Marriott campaign had an impact across 195,486 people, with some 125 tweets from 22 contributors. The total reach on Friday, February 13, was a high of 21,241. The hotel saw an increase in interactions on the page, and since it was an opportunity to interact with followers, it led to an increase in brand recall, according to MindShift Metrics, a research arm of MindShift Interactive.

Late last year, Food Bloggers Association of India (FBAI) had held an Indian food bloggers award, along with JW Marriott. In order to create pre event buzz about the award ceremony, the company associated with four food bloggers to conduct contests for four days, from October 29 to November 1, 2014. The hotel saw some 400 interactions each day.

The event was covered live, with live tweets on Twitter. Instagram was leveraged by JW Marriott as being the first hospitality brand to create a Hyperlapse video, along with a Flipagram video.

The hotel received approximately 800 interactions through the course of the event. With 381 total participants, the reach was a phenomenal 823,529. The hashtag trended across Mumbai for a couple of days, increasing awareness about JW Marriott and its association with FBAI.

In order to inspire event planners to share their meeting ideas, Marriott International has launched a `Share & Win' game until May 9, 2015. Participants have to create an account, and compile their set of meeting ideas in the form of photos which will be shared via meetingsimagined.com. A two-night stay at any Marriott International hotel in India would be awarded to the winner whose set of photos is most actively shared.

A panel discussion was also executed on Twitter. With over 100 plus conversations, over a million impressions were created over three days.

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