How hotels create a lasting performance on Facebook

The article is about the content performance of hotel brands on Facebook.
Seventh Art Media identified key factoes to see how hotels develop their strategies on social networks and especially on Facebook.

As the article says, Facebook is one of the most important interface with a huge online traffic. Hotels really need to focus and improve on their marketing online through social networks. They have also to focus on how customers react and not only on their general strategies. As the article explains also, hotels have the capacity to develop their online community and the engagement. The company shows the factors that hotels need to follow up in order to generate amplification and engagement:
- hotels need to maintain "a steady flow" in order to keep the engagement of their fans.
- hotels need to be creative and for every post need to be different - posts must be attractive in order to develop a certain visibility for future customers.

Many other factors are described in the article.

Facebook is now a huge "machine" where hotels can expose their news, attract current and new customers and have the possibility to develop their "business" by featuring their new offers, packages or new facilities. More a hotel is creative and innovative, more the customers will be attracted and will want to participate within the hotel's community. Being on Facebook is also important because guests can interact with you, ask questions, give you their opinions and grow your visibility everywhere on the web. If a guest like your hotel's link so the guest can share it with all his friends and so on...: the visibility can be huge.
The hotels can feature more and more things that happened in their hotels without spending a lot of money especially if someone is handling all the digital marketing inside the hotel's team.

Facebook is a place that hotels need to be seen and need to develop their image in order to extend their name.

Link to the article

Comments about Emilie's article

I totally agree with Emilie. Even if hotels are focusing on leisure or business, they should improve on their facilities and communicate more on what's they have as specific activities.
Hotels should definitely make their specificities their priorities for more visibility and to attrack more the market than their competitors.
 
Link to Emilie's article

Sheraton.com named best hotel website

The article is about the recognition of Sheraton.com as the best hotel website for all the categories in Brand image ratings. The report shows that Sheraton.com has a responsive interface with a distinctive color palette, differentiated typography and superior production value.
The Senior Vice President of Sheraton Hotels & Resorts explains also in the article how they spent $6 billion to revitalize the Sheraton.com in 2009 and he is proud to see that their goals have been achieved. They wanted to create a consumer-friendly site with an easy access to all the information.

Analysis of the website:
Sheraton.com is definitely easy to use and very easy to book with the small window that appears on the main page.
Sheraton.com is really focusing on the engagement with a full page about "their community" - with story to share, tips to share also - and an easy access to the facebook page by login with your own account. They want you to be a member of the Sheraton community. They really push you to join their club in order to share your experience and book more in their hotels.
Next to "our community" page, you can find the "Starwood Preferred Guest" - once again, it is another tool to invite customers to be engaged in their programs. You can also leave some comments about the website and how easy is it to use. Their poilitic is definitely look to the engagement of the customers and how they can attrack them by convincing them that Sheraton.com is the best website to share stories and book a hotel.

For the booking, they also guarantee you the best deal by booking through Sheraton.com where you can have numbers of benefits like Starpoints, bonus...

 However, the list of all the hotels is not easy to find. The website contains a lot of text and windows to open that can definitely confuse the customers. I like the fact that you can really read a lot of stories, tips and you can have an easy access to Facebook but I prefer the website with more design, less text and more photos to "transport" you to your future destination. But for business, Sheraton.com is ideal especially to book very quickly.

Link to the article

Comment about Lauriane's article

I totally agree with Lauriane. Especially for the first paragraph about the myth of planning. A lot of marketers try to plan in a long term but as you said social media are changing too fast to have the possibility to plan for the next few months.

Social media give the opportunity to develop your brand to a different level and make a better visibility to another world. Social media are growing and growing and hired people who have the real skills to develop this kind of marketing is very important for any brands. I totally agree with Lauriane for her last paragrah - It is much better to hire a great marketer and train him rather than a good networker.
 
Link to Lauriane's article

TripAdvisor adds airline ratings to flight search

The article is about TripAdvisor who launches a new feature to allow the travellers to leave feedbacks and comments about airlines.

TripAdvisor Flights can allow the passenger to reate various aspects of their flight experiences. The aspects are about baggage handling, check-in experience, in-flight amenities, the service, the punctuality, the value, the comfort...
Travellers can also be able to see which airlines are recommended by others while they want to book a trip. If the traveller is already a member so he can also comment on his experience.

Why is it so important now to be able to read feedbacks and comments about airlines ? It is as important as hotels - sharing your experience about airlines offer the possibility to other travellers to make a better choice or to reassure them about some "clichés" that they can have about low-cost airlines for instance.

Why can it be important for the airlines : it will offer them the possibility to have a larger visibility especially for the low-cost airlines or the new airlines or the airlines with a bad reputation. They can have also the possibility to increase their service by stating the number of comments and their importance. They can "discover" the opinion of their customers without sending them a survey.
It will allow them to reply to their customers if they posted bad or good comments about their experience. It will permit to understand the opinion of their customers and maybe improve the quality of their flights.

To conclude, I can say that it is a good initiative from TripAdvisor to launch this new feature. I do not have the feeling that airlines try to improve their service by asking the opinion of their customers. I booked many trips and any airlines had never asked me my opinion or my feedback about my experience - only hotel or 3rd Party like Expedia asked me about my whole experience during my booking or my stay in the hotel. So maybe airlines should improve on that. And to have the possibility to know more about the other airlines before to book is a really good thing for the travellers in general.

Link to the article

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Comments about Alia's article

Your article and your comments are very interesting. It is quiet convenient to have this kind of application available on our Iphone especially if we are travelling and we did not book a room before to arrive in the city...


It also allows the hotels to have a better visibility and to improve their communication media through a new tool : application on phones !

Good news I found the same application for France ! It is called "Hôtels" and it is almost better than this one. It shows you where you are on a map with all the hotels around with the better price that the app can find. Very convenient when you do not even know where you are in a city that you do not know !
 
Link to Alia's comments
 

Expedia promotes vacation packages on Facebook

This article is about Expedia who launched a contest on Facebook to find a better attractive name for its package. 

After a few years, Expedia thinks that this name might be confusing for its customers wo book most of the time their trip separately: hotel on a side and flight on another side. expedia explains that if the customers use the "Vacation packages" they can save up to $ 450 but unfortunately they are "spoiling" this potential by booking their trip separately. The different prices can be very attractive for people who just need to name a package and pos it on Facebook. 

Comments can be made after reading this article:

- This article shows that customers become more and more important for a website like Expedia. It shows that Expedia really cares of the reviews, comments or opinions of its customers. They also want to integrate the customers in the company's life and ask the customers to play a role in the future of the company by organizing this kind of contest. 

- It also shows that using social media like Facebook become very important. This tool is very useful for the marketers who want to attract more and more customers. And using this tool is very smart when we know that a lot of people like to play on Facebook. So Expedia knows that organizing a contest on Facebook will definitely attract people. 

- It will help Expedia to understand why customers hardly used the "Vacation packages" by giving the opportunity to customers to find the new name of the package. The winner will also be chosen by a large number of contestants.

So go online, check it out and maybe earn a vacation package worth up to $ 10,000 !

Link to the article

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Comment about Aude's article

Expedia offers free rooms upgrades for top customers

I totally agree with Aude too ! The service is the key success of the hospitality industry. If one customer leave the hotel happy with a good appreciation of the hotel then it can be sure that the hotel will "win" ten new guests. However, if a customer leave the hotel with bad impressions then it can cause some damages.


Expedia and all the other companies should make some efforts to make some agreements with hotels, airlines to offer free upgrade or any other gifts to their best customers. It will reinforce the desire to book through expedia and it will definitely reinforce the customer loyalty.

Are customized prices next for the travel industry ?

 This article shows how the travel industry can choose to customize their prices, why they should do it and how they can do it.

The article is not considering the whole travel industry but is talking about more the airlines and the price differences between a frequent customer and a customer who will choose the airline because of the good deal. The airlines are "defending" themselves by saying that it is normal to offer different rates to different customers according to how often the customers use the airline. I think that the article should also talk about the low cost airlines who really customize their prices or even a large number of hotels.

Air Asia (for instance) a low cost airline really customize their prices according to the customer characteristics: you can add anything like a second meal, have a bigger seat, fast & first boarding. So each customer can customize their prices. It is the same for Accor or Club Med who show online different prices with different options and you can choose to pay the price that you want according to the risk that the customers want to take. (refundable or modify...)
Actually, the travel industry already customize their prices and let the customers know about it. However it will be really unfair to "defraud" the customers and let them pay a higher price for those who book through other websites like they explain in the article.
I really think that every customer understand how the prices can be customized - the travel industry and the customers can find their advantage and make it profitable for them.

The revenue management is already a form of customized price. Each company within the travel industry customize their prices by changing the prices according to the seasons, the day of the week, the event and so on...Customized prices are already in the customs but depends how fair are the company by using it.


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