Investigating Social Media Marketing in the Hospitality Industry: Facebook and European Hotels

ENTER 2014 Research Track Slide Number 1

Investigating Social Media Marketing in the Hospitality Industry: Facebook

and European Hotels.

Roberta MinazziStefan Lagrosen

University of Insubria, Como, ItalyLinnaeus University, Växjö and Kalmar, Sweden


Agenda

@ Introduction@Objective and Research questions@Research methodology@Results@Conclusions and Practical Implications


Introduction@ Nearly 70% of customers hear experiences of other

consumers before purchasing a product (Nielsen, 2012).

@ Social media are widely adopted by travellers (Cox et al., 2009; O’Connor, 2008; Xiang and Gretzel, 2010; Leung et al 2013).

@ Engaging customers by means of social media could increase customer loyalty, electronic word-of-mouth and consequently corporate sales and revenues (Dellarocas, 2003; Chevalier and Mayzlin, 2006; Dellarocas and Zhang, 2009).


The study seeks to understand how widespread the use of social media in the hotel business is, concentrating on:

How top European Hotels brands strategically use social media?

Which are the factors that influence the use of social media in European hotels?

Which is the level of integration among social media, the website and other social media?

How many posts are published by the hotel brand and which is mainly the content?

Objective and research questions


Research methodology

@ First step: items of analysis

@Second step: hotel brands Facebook pages analysis and posts content analysis

@ Period of research: March-April 2013


Hotel brands selection: steps

STEP 1

@Ranking of the top ten European hotel groups (MKG Hospitality, 2012)

@Inventory of the existing hotel brands for each hotel group

STEP 2

@Exclusion of brands not included in the World ranking of the top 50 hotel brands (Hotels Magazine, 2012)

@ Other exclusions


Hotel brands selectedACCOR HOTEL GROUP

IBIS HOTELSNOVOTEL

BEST WESTERN -

CARLSON REZIDOR HOTEL GROUP RADISSON

INTERCONTINENTAL HOTEL GROUP

INTERCONTINENTAL HOTEL & RESORTSCROWNE PLAZAHOLIDAY INNHOLIDAY INN EXPRESS

HILTON WORLDWIDEHILTON HOTELS & RESORTSDOUBLE TREEHAMPTON

MELIA INTERNATIONAL MELIA HOTELS & RESORTSNH HOTELS -

TUI HOTELS & RESORTS RIU HOTELS & RESORTS

WHITEBREAD HOTELS & RESTAURANTS PREMIERE INN


Items of analysis

@ ACCESSIBILITY@ INFORMATION@ CALL TO ACTION@ CONNECTIONS@ PERFORMANCE


Findings: facebook page features

ACCESSIBILITY@All the FB pages can be easily found @FB page the hotel brand website.

INFORMATION@hotel brand (86,6%), the mission (60%)

and the brand history (86,6%)CALL TO ACTION @80% offer the function “book now”

CONNECTIONS

@67% with other social media @86% have a Mobile application but only

20% of them promote it on FB or on the website


Findings: performance

@ Gap:«like» and «people talking about this»

@Counting metrics seem unconnected with quality/size/brand strategy of hotel brands

@Number of posts not connected with metrics.

BRAND like talking about this

Hilton Hotels & Resorts 1,010,608 11,817

NH Hotels 34,662 247


Posts Content


Conclusions and practical implications

@Moderate effort in interacting with users and engagement (posts reply, asking for customer collaboration, etc.).

@Moderate level of connection with other social media and Mobile applications

Focus on engagementDevelop an integrated social media marketing strategy

…..an integrated communication strategy


Thanks for your attention!

For further information:

Roberta Minazzi, [email protected]

Stefan Lagrosen, [email protected]


Top five hotel brands

* U=upscale; M=Mid-range; E=economy

BRANDRank/

quality*N. room

2012

Best Western 1/M 311,894

Hampton 6/M 181,087

Hilton Hotels & Resorts 5/U 196,151

Riu Hotels & Resorts 44/U 39,823

Double Tree 27/U 70,793


Findings: counting metrics BRAND

World rank

quality level

N. room 2012

FB member

since like

talking about this

were here n. posts activity index

BEST WESTERN 1 M 311,894 2009 687.308 25.837 59.294 565 3,76%

HOLIDAY INN 2 M 225,328 2008 452.395 5.092 na 354 1,13%

HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS 4 E 196,666 2012 23.238 536 na 23 2,31%

HILTON HOTELS & RESORTS 5 U 196,151 2009 1.010.608 11.817 4.621.541 182 1,17%

HAMPTON 6 M 181,087 2009 312.754 13.107 na 484 4,19%

IBIS HOTELS 15 E 113,077 2011 103.308 1.235 176.024 152 1,20%

CROWNE PLAZA 16 U 105,104 2011 80.440 936 na 249 1,16%

RADISSON 20 M 94,436 2011 77.159 545 na 371 0,71%

NOVOTEL 24 M 74,117 2012 38.010 489 236.298 104 1,29%

DOUBLE TREE 27 U 70,793 2009 203.655 5.320 686.754 336 2,61%

INTERCONTINENTAL HOTEL & RESORTS

32 U 57,598 2008 38.654 493 na 69 1,28%

NH HOTELS 35 M 51,898 2010 34.662 247 1.697 623 0,71%

PREMIERE INN 38 M 48,725 2010 67.602 650 na 136 0,96%

RIU HOTELS & RESORTS 44 U 39,823 2009 271.445 6.139 na 199 2,26%

MELIA HOTELS & RESORTS 47 U 34,324 2010 227.261 1.623 52.213 134 0,71%


Frequency of posts


Posts and metrics

BRAND liketalking

about thisPosts in

2012Hilton Hotels & Resorts

1,010,608 11,817 182

NH Hotels 34,662 247 623