Hotels Invest More of their Marketing Budgets in Social Media & Reputation Management

The online media revolution has opened the door to a host of new issues for small business owners. Before, everyone was a critic, but the only ones you had to worry about were local newspaper or magazines. Today, with social media available at the palm of consumers’ hands an online review, good or bad, is just a few clicks away, and with a rating system reminiscent of a school GPA one mishap can leave a business owner wondering just what happened. According to a recent article on eMarketer.com even the travel industry has taken to this rapidly growing consumer awareness segment by putting more of their marketing budgets towards digital marketing than any other industry. Stating that, “nearly 70% of US hoteliers responding to the April 2010 study reported online was the marketing channel with the greatest ROI”. Not too surprisingly, the report also mentioned that, “the majority of hotels are using a variety of online channels to reach potential customers, including 69% marketing via social media.” For most of the service industry, recommendations and online reviews are key to their growth strategy. As the article points out “Half said they proactively encouraged guests to post reviews of their hotel, and even those that did not encourage reviews saw the importance of review monitoring them. Nearly seven in 10 did so at least weekly.” It’s no secret, listening to the consumer is what keeps doors open and now with Hotels focusing more of their marketing efforts on social media monitoring and reputation management they are more apt to hear what their customers are saying both good and bad and react accordingly. Source: www.emarketer.com