UNIVERSITY OF SUNDERLAND

BSc (HONS) INTERNATIONAL TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY MANAGEMENT

Student ID: 119136542

Student Name: SIDDHARTHA SANYAL

Module Code: 312

Module Name / Title: TLH312 eTourism

Due Date: 19TH November 2014

Centre : University of Sunderland London Campus

Hand in Date: 19TH November 2014

Assignment Title: Critical evaluation of developments of Social Media on

Hospitality: A case study of STK London

Critical evaluation of developments of Social Media

on Hospitality: A case study of STK London

Introduction

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has found extensive practical use in

the tourism and hospitality industry during the recent years. Businesses are adding

new technologies and efficiently using existing ones to distribute a quality product to

their customers so that they sustain their competitive advantage (Bowie and Buttle,

2013). New improvements in social media have also captured the attention of

business administrators in the tourism and hospitality sector. The importance is now

on using social media to promote the product and interact with the customers. To

target their customer segment many big, small and medium sized businesses have

well-built social media strategies (Page, 2011).

This report is on the role of ICT in the tourism and hospitality industry with a particular

importance given to social media. The literature review segment aims to cover a

range of main circulated works on the subject of ICT in the tourism and hospitality

industry. The theoretical aspects which are required for the research are also

discussed. There is also a case study on STK London, which is a steakhouse situated

on the ground floor of the ME London Hotel in The Strand, London. ME London Hotel is

a luxury five star hotel in which food and beverage department has been operated by

One Group Company as a joint business venture. STK restaurant is owned by The One

Group and STK London is a medium sized hospitality enterprise inside the hotel.

Conclusion and recommendations are given after studying the social media strategies

of STK London.

Literature Review

Sigala (2014) states that hospitality businesses use ICT to search on social media for

the applicant most suited to their requirements. Employers in the hospitality sector

also have learning resources and guidelines online for their employees. This helps in

creating e-learning in the hospitality sector. The hospitality managers can exchange

information more speedily by the use of internet. A rising number of hospitality and

tourism companies now depend on ICT to pay, train, recruit and evaluate their

employees. There are also several new distribution and supply channels, which have

now developed. People can book their travel and hospitality choices online and

organizations can get the necessary services by ordering them on the internet. This

increases the quickness of the hospitality firm and permits the people to find last

minute choices that are appropriate for their budgets. Social media is also used for

assembling marketing intelligence and finding out about customer likings. According

to Bowie and Buttle (2013) there are numerous tools of ICT that are used by

customers to find information about a hospitality enterprise. These include computers,

mobile phones and tablets. This has led to an enormous number of hospitality and

tourism establishments to create their own websites and social media existence so

that the customers can become aware about their product and their services.

Companies are gradually using cooperative websites where the customer can directly

make contact with the employees and staff. Many of these websites have visual tours,

photographs, videos and promotional schemes to support the product. Additionally

social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkdIn and Bebo are also used.

Hospitality and tourism companies have exploited the improvement in mobile

technology by sending texts to their customers and through the use of their own apps.

Ali and Frew (2013) express that mobile technology has also influenced tourism and

hospitality in a significant way. Tourists are expected to buy hospitality and leisure

services on their mobile phones and they can pay for these through mobile banking.

This mobile phone driven market is called m-commerce and it has become a

significant part of the tourism economy. Consumers with smart phones can find travel

and leisure attractions on the move and can access reviews about a hospitality body

before they arrive at the door. Mobile phones are very much close to social media and

can be used for advice before gaining a service. This has become standard practice

since the arriving of 3G technology. Applications such as Skype allow a user to

communicate with other known customers or the hotel staff for advice or dialogue.

Customers can also post their locations on social media platforms so that their friends

know which hospitality provider they are using and what their views about it are.

According to Litvin, Goldsmith and Pan (2008) Word of Mouth (WOM) is one of the

most significant influences in the decision making process of a customer. This word of

mouth is very vital to the hospitality industry and innovative technology has led to

Electronic Word of Mouth (eWOM) being made available to the customer. Customers

can now trust on known or unknown sources by the use of ICT before they pay for the

hospitality services they are about to purchase. The authors also describe that some

of the information found online is not trustworthy and customers should make an

informed decision instead of trusting blindly on eWOM.

Page (2011) describes that an upsurge in the use of information and communication

technology has led to larger communication between travelers. This communication

by the use of social media lets consumers to express their liking or disliking for a

hospitality product online. The consumers are now free to express their views on the

services offered by the hospitality industry. Instead of relying on industry grading

customers can now check customer ratings on interactive websites such as

TripAdvisor and make up their own minds. Social media networking sites such as

Facebook also allow users to plan collectively on where to arrive and when to indulge

in leisure. Therefore business managers in the hospitality sector are progressively

looking to maintain and optimize a social media presence to ensure that their product

is well publicized on not only Facebook and Twitter but also on YouTube and Flickr.

According to Morrison (2013) the use of social media has grown in the recent years.

Facebook is a significant social media platform on which both customers and

hospitality companies have their pages. It is estimated that most of the Facebook

users are outside US and Canada so it has a global outreach. The author notes the

example of VisitBritain to mention a promotional strategy in which people had to like

the VisitBritain Facebook page in order to participate in a promotional sweepstake.

Facebook presence is maintained by tourism departments from Switzerland to

Philippines and promotional schemes in hospitality often require the use of Facebook

pages.

Hollis (2009) writes that micro blogging service provider Twitter has become a popular

social media channel for interacting with people and companies related to travel and

tourism. Many airlines, hotel chains and other businesses now have their own Twitter

handle. Twitter allows businesses to follow their customers and update their own

status regularly. Twitter can be used to announce loyalty schemes, lost & found

services, new product etc. Customers can also tweet about their experiences and give

their opinion on places that they have visited or products that they are interested in.

According to McCabe (2009) if a TripAdvisor page has a number of user generated

opinions on it then it can be considered more trustworthy and reliable than judging a

hospitality provider based on a single reliable source such as a review in a newspaper

or a travel guide. However, he warns against the fake and deliberately mischievous

reviews that keep appearing on TripAdvisor in support of a business or against it.

Moreover the nature of TripAdvisor is such that users can remain anonymous and this

creates reliability issues for both the hospitality business and the customers. Other

websites such as Virtualtourist.com and Holiday-Truth.com have tried to address this

problem but with partial success. McCabe also notes that Wikipedia has user

generated content and this can be used to promote the product.

Hanan and Putit (2014) write that images have a lasting impact on the minds of a

traveler. In the past people used to buy postcards of the destinations that they

wanted to visit. If the visual element of the picture was found to be appealing then

tourists would visit the tourism destination. This appeal of the visual element of an

attractive picture is now being used by marketing managers to promote their tourism

and hospitality related product online by the use of image based social media such as

Instagram. Instagram allows businesses and users to post pictures of tourism

destinations online. By using Instagram marketing managers have a chance to

promote a positive and customer friendly image of their hospitality organization by

posting pictures which capture the look and the feel of the product that is being

offered. These pictures can be shared by other users on platforms such as Facebook

and Twitter. This generates additional social media publicity. Furthermore instead of

telling a potential customer about a new product it is desirable to show images of it

when it is launched. Instagram achieves all this and can be used by hospitality

businesses to present a positive and attractive image to their customers. According to

Miller (2011) videos posted YouTube have also become very popular during the recent

years. Managers of both large scale enterprises and SMEs have realized that having a

YouTube presence can be an effective tool for marketing their product online.

YouTube allows users to create their own channels on which they can upload videos.

This option is also available to businesses and the business managers can use the

videos to present a customer friendly image of their organization. YouTube is hard for

marketing managers to ignore because 40% of all videos watched online are seen on

YouTube. Approximately two billion videos are seen by users each day. This makes

YouTube a valuable platform for marketing a hospitality product or a service online.

Hospitality managers can upload videos of their establishment and can also post

videos of announcements and short talks which can be commented upon by

subscribers of their channel.

Connolly and Haley (2008) feel that critical success in the hospitality industry can be

achieved by implementing ICT and hiring a knowledgeable ICT staff which can

efficiently manage and promote the ICT components of a company. Businesses that

invest in ICT have now begun to realize that it is a core component of the overall

business strategy and has become essential for many operations. A full service hotel

of today offers a technically enabled environment with advanced monitoring,

communication and convenience systems in place. A chain of hotels or a group can

coordinate its operations to best suit its needs and target customer segments by the

use of ICT. Technology has become vital to security, decision making and

management operations. Whitelaw (2008) also states that hospitality companies are

beginning to invest a large amount of their revenue on ICT. The relationship between

ICT and hospitality has been noticeable since at least 1997. ICT in the hospitality

sector has created a competitive environment in which organizations are trying to

match each other on every available platform based on their size and resources.

However, further research is required to fully understand the effect of ICT on

hospitality and traditional procedures such as guest-staff interaction will still be major

deciding factors on where customers want to spend their money.

Case Study – STK London and Social Media

STK London is a steakhouse restaurant located inside the ME London Hotel in central

London. This restaurant is a medium sized hospitality enterprise inside the five star

ME London Hotel. It is owned by the parent company The One Group. STK London

offers steak and other food to its customers in a fashionable luxury environment.

Alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages are also served (The One Group, 2014).

Figure 1 STK Steakhouse London official page on The One Group Website.

The official page of STK London opens on the website of the One Group. It has a short

description with full contact details and connecting icons to Facebook, Twitter and

Instagram. The opening hours and menu are also provided. The website has a series

of high resolution images to promote the STK product and services. Booking options

are also available online (The One Group 2014). This is a model website page which is

very well laid out to connect with the customer. The customers can access the STK

London Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages instantly. The booking options are

simple and clear-cut. There are also contact details which can be reached by

computers, landlines or smart phones. This integration of product description, online

booking, social media and phone number onto a single page is an ideal strategy for a

medium sized hospitality enterprise.

Figure 2 : Picture taken from STK London Facebook page

Facebook is an online social networking website that allows users to create their own

pages and upload video, images, status updates and posts. Hospitality organizations

are increasingly using Facebook to connect with their customers (Morrison, 2013;

Page, 2011). STK London has its own Facebook page with 4,837 likes and 23,833 visits

as seen on October 30th, 2014. Details about the establishment are available in the

'About' section. This page allows the moderators to post announcements, updates,

and general information about STK London. The users can comment on the posts and

there is a separate 'posts to page' section. There is also a reviews section in which

customers can post their views on STK London product and services. The moderators

have liked pages related to their business, such as the Facebook One Group page

(Facebook, 2014). STK London Facebook page keeps the customers updated on the

main page on which only the moderators are allowed to post but people can

comment. The reviews and user generated posts are kept on a separate page on

which people express their opinion. As a medium sized hospitality enterprise with a

small ICT staff this strategy seems well suited to the requirements of STK London.

Figure 3 Picture taken from Twitter @STK London

Twitter is a micro blogging social network which allows users to express their opinion

in a word limit format. Both hospitality organizations and a large number of their

customers use Twitter. It has become a marketing tool for hospitality business

managers (Hollis, 2009). The Twitter handle for STK London is @STKLondon and it is

followed by 9684 people as seen on October 30th, 2014. The page is full of tweets and

re-tweets which is a very good sign for a medium sized hospitality enterprise. The

tweets include announcements, updates and general messages (Twitter, 2014). STK

London has more followers on twitter than it has like on Facebook. This active Twitter

presence is a good social media strategy since it allows not only the moderators to

Tweet about their product but also allows retweeting and varied content.

Figure 4 : Picture taken from TripAdvisor STK London page

TripAdvisor is hospitality based online review website in which people can write

reviews about the tourist attractions that they have visited. Customers sometimes

rely on TripAdvisor to make up their minds about tourism and hospitality venues

(McCabe, 2009). The STK London TripAdvisor page has the basic contact details as

well as a number of user generated reviews. These reviews are based on the quality

of food, service, value and atmosphere. There were a total of 421 reviews as seen on

October 30th, 2014. Most of these reviews were very favorable. The page also allows

customers to find and book a table by using OpenTable (TripAdvisor, 2014). Although

STK London has little control over TripAdvisor reviews their quality product and

services are promoted by satisfied customers online. This generates good publicity for

the organization. Customers who are encouraged by TripAdvisor reviews can book a

table online.

Figure 5 : Picture taken from Instagram STK

Instagram is an image sharing platform which allows users to post images online and

if these images are seen as appealing and likable then potential customers are likely

to be attracted to the tourism and hospitality destination shown (Hanan and Putit,

2014). The brand STK has an Instagram page but there are very less STK London

images are among the many images present on that page (Instagram, 2014).

Instagram does not have an individual STK London page.

Figure 6 Picture taken from The One Group Channel in Youtube

The video-sharing website YouTube is used by hospitality managers to promote their

product by posting videos related their product online (Page, 2011). STK London also

does not have an individual channel YouTube but its videos can be seen on The One

Group YouTube channel (YouTube, 2014). There is a large amount of STK related user

generated content available on YouTube. The good thing about this strategy is that

STK London maintains a presence on YouTube. The limiting factor is that it is shown as

a part of a larger organization and not individually.

It can therefore be seen that STK London has solid individual presence on several

social media channels but is also seen as a part of the larger One Group on others. It

is safe to assume that STK London is not overstretching itself individually to too many

social media channels but using some of the most relevant ones ideally. This is a good

strategy given the scale and the size of the STK London operations. However, one

major limitation of the social media strategy is the lack of a STK London or One Group

mobile application aimed at customers. The official website can be opened by smart

phones but there is no application for booking by smart phone applications. This is the

one noticeable area in which STK London has not utilized its ICT resources.

Social Media - Findings and Discussion

Official Website Page

The STK London official website page is very well laid out and the customers can book

their table online if they are available or can call the staff and avail more information.

According to Hanan and Putit (2014) images have a lasting impact on the traveler's

mind and appealing images can help attract more visitors to a tourism and hospitality

venue. The STK London website has a series of appealing high resolution images

which show the food and decor. These will help the customers make up their minds

about the product that they are about to purchase. The most remarkable thing about

the website is that it manages to include the menu, the contact details and

connecting icons to the STK Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages on a single page.

This is done in a clutter free and easily navigable manner. This is a sound strategy for

a medium sized hospitality enterprise because it will help to maintain a solid online

presence through which customers can avail information and even purchase online.

Facebook

According to Morrison (2013) marketing managers in tourism and hospitality often use

the social media networking website Facebook for their promotional purposes. An

effective Facebook page can help the users update their status and let others know

where are and how they feel. The STK Facebook page has all the necessary

fundamentals for a medium sized hospitality enterprise. It makes good sense to keep

the announcements and the updates from the STK London moderators on the main

page and have separate pages for user generated reviews and posts. There were a

few reviews by users in which the reviewers openly criticized STK London product and

services. This means that the monitoring activity is designed to attract all opinion and

not just flattering reviews. This makes the STK London review page more credible.

This interaction with the users and freedom for them to freely express their opinion is

a good media strategy. However, the worrying aspect is that the page has more visits

than Facebook likes.

Twitter

The microblogging platform Twitter has become one of the world's favorite social

networking tools. It is therefore a tool that business managers will want to use in

order to promote their product and services online (Hollis, 2009). STK London has a

Twitter handle and it has a very active account. There are a number of tweets and

retweets capturing the look and the feel of the hospitality organization. This free

interaction is also moderated since there were no profane or objectionable material

found on the page. Users can tweet about their STK London experience and giving

customers this freedom to interact is a sound social media strategy.

Instagram

Hanan and Putit (2014) state that Instagram has emerged as an effective tool to share

pictures. The authors feel that Instagram can be used by marketing managers to

promote images of their hospitality services online. STK London website page has a

connecting link to STK Instagram page. Although STK London images are found within

this page it does not have a separate Instagram page of its own. This is a limitation

since Instagram is relatively easier to maintain and moderate than both Facebook and

Twitter. The marketing managers of this medium sized hospitality enterprise seem to

be limiting themselves to the effective use of Facebook and Twitter and it seems that

they do not want to overextend their ICT social networking resources by keeping and

maintaining an independent STK London Instagram page.

Youtube

As noted in the sections above promotion of a tourism destination is also possible

through the use of YouTube (Miller, 2011). STK London does not have a separate

YouTube page of its own but it has a number of videos on The One Group channel.

This is also a strategy in which STK London has maintained a media presence but as a

part of a larger YouTube channel. YouTube channels are difficult to maintain due to

the constant comments posted by the users. Being a part of a larger channel is

therefore a good strategy by STK London, which is a medium sized hospitality

enterprise.

TripAdvisor

TripAdvisor allows registered users to review a hospitality organization. Some

organizations manipulate TripAdvisor to post positive reviews about themselves. A

large number of TripAdvisor reviews allows for a diversity of opinion (McCabe, 2009).

There are a large number of reviews for STK London. There were over four hundred

reviews as seen on October 12, 2014. Most of them were favorable (TripAdvisor,

2014). This will generate good publicity for the organization since a large number of

favorable reviews means satisfied customers. The option to book a table by using

OpenTable application on TripAdvisor will also help generate additional income.

However, STK London cannot be in control of the overall page on TripAdvisor and it

should not try to do so.

Mobile Technology

The one critical area in which STK London fails to register a presence is mobile phone

applications, or apps. According to Ali and Frew (2013) mobile technology is

increasingly becoming important for the hospitality industry. The fact that neither The

One Group nor STK London even have a mobile app shows the lack of strategy in this

area. The official website can still be visited by using smart phones and bookings can

be made.

Conclusion and Recommendations

ICT has become an integral part of the tourism and hospitality industry. In today's

environment business managers will have to integrate ICT in hospitality in order to

achieve the essential competitive advantage (Connolly and Haley, 2008). Many

businesses have integrated ICT into a number of their core operations and there are

signs that the use of technology will increase in the future (Sigala, 2014). Customers

in the hospitality sector have also started to rely on social media and Electronic Word

of Mouth (e-WOM) for making decisions on where to spend their money (Page, 2011;

Litvin, Goldsmith and Pan, 2008). Therefore it is sound business strategy to make the

best use of social media in order to promote a hospitality related product and service.

STK London is a medium sized hospitality enterprise and it has its own presence on

Facebook and Twitter. These are both well managed accounts with a large following

and a large amount of content. The Facebook and Twitter strategies of STK London

are ideal given its size and scale. STK London related content appears as part of The

One Group on YouTube. STK London also does not have an individual Instagram page.

This indicates that the group is not willing to have its own individual accounts on both

these channels probably because of the amount of effort required. If STK London finds

that it cannot afford people to manage these individual accounts on Instagram and

YouTube than it is possibly the right strategy. This is the case with most small and

medium sized enterprises. On TripAdvisor a large amount of reviews will help promote

the STK London product.

However, both The One group and STK London do not have a mobile application or

app. Currently only the official website and the social media accounts can be reached

by the use of smart phones. STK London should have a mobile app. Building and

managing a mobile app is not that expensive and it would be acceptable even if an

STK London section is found in The One Group app. As more users rely on mobile

technology for decision making this is one area in which STK London needs to have a

sound strategy.

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