Enhancing Revenues using social media the "social hotel"

1. Using Social Media to Enhance Revenues:The Social Hotel February 17 2010 Suresh Sood, Advisor Online Communities & Social Media Marketing Researcher UTS

2. The Anthropomorphy of Destination Brands : Building the Emotional Link with Consumers through Film and Social Media, November 2010 http://www.bit.ly/socialhotel

3. Topics for Discussion Social media marketing Social Traveller Importance of Facebook Social Value Chain and Ancillary Revenue B2B Social The Social Hotel Recommendations for 2011 Social Media Customer Contact Centre Resourcing for Social Hotel 2015 vision (consumer and travel participants)

4. Social Media Marketing is not Conventional Marketing “a many-to-many mediated communications model in which consumers can interact with the medium, firms can provide content to the medium and, in the most radical departure from traditional marketing environments, consumers can provide commercially oriented content to the medium.” Hoffman & Novak, 1997

5. A New Way of Marketing ? Social Network Marketing 1:1 Marketing ‘All Customers in a network interrelated’ Segment Marketing ‘All Customers are different’ ‘All Customers in a segment the same’ Shotgun Marketing ‘All Customers the same’

6. GreatMystery14 www.facebook.com/sureshsood soody ssood Hero5! twitter.com/soody www.bravenewtalent.com/talent/suresh_sood www.linkedin.com/in/sureshsood Geektoid Mangala scuzzy55 suresh.sood@uts.edu.au

7. Social Traveller: sources content & inputs from social travel sites General social networks and sites: Facebook (e.g. referrals to hotel web sites) Flickr (uploads from destination) Twitter (alerts on posted reviews, special offers e.g. Tornoto at 50% discount from Virgin America and geotagging use www.connectme360.com to check out ground content from destination tweets) LinkedIn YouTube (video of destination experience) Mobile social networks – foursquare and Gowalla Travel Blogs – Travelpod and TravelBlog Social Travel guides/networks – WAYN Travel review sites – trip advisor and Travel Post Online Travel Agencies (hotel reviews)

8. Inbound Tourist Study Bangkok Airport(April 2010) A quantitative survey of 320 outbound travellers Face-to-face intercept survey The survey establishes buying patterns of consumers and particular impacts for travel purchasing Distribution channels and information sources Interviewed in the departure lounge transiting to Australia. Composition both European transit passengers and Thai travellers departing to Australia.

9. Online Social Networking Not using - 45.5% Facebook - 42.9% Not using Facebook – 11.6%

10. Facebook is My Newspaper(Susie Wilkening, http://reachadvisors.typepad.com/)

11. Travel Distribution Chain Consumer Perspective Traditional Travel Value Chain Social Online Travel Distribution Value Chain Expands Beyond Traditional Chain

12. Landscape Online Travel 2010-2015 Accommodation Road Airlines Rail/Ferry Hotels B&B Cruise Skyteam Farebundles Ancillary Fees GDS/CRS Amadeus Galileo Worldspan USA: Expedia Orbitz Priceline Travelocity Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) Retail Travel Agents Wholesalers Business Leisure Packaged Tour FIT VFR MICE 12 UK: Expedia Opodo Booking.com (Priceline) Lastminute.com (Travelocity) India: Makemytrip Yatra Travel Guru Cleartrip Tour Operators

13. Ancillary Revenue US Airlines Source: Bureau of Transportation Stats, Form 41; Schedule P1.2 In 2009, the American airline industry collected $7.8 billion with Delta $1.6 billion from Ancillary services Ancillary services are non-ticket related charged services e.g. blankets, excess baggage, flowers, flight insurance, frequent flyer, meals, hotel bookings, in-flight entertainment, pet transportation, pillows, theme parks, theatre/concerts, trains and even advertising space on trays.

14. B2B Social Airlines and frequent flyer lounge operators Travel agents Travel management companies Global distribution system operators Charge card providers e.g. Amex, Visa, Mastercard and Diners Corporate booking engines Online Travel Agents – Expedia, priceline, Travelocity and Orbitz Meta search – Kayak, bing (Microsoft) and fly.com 90% of B2B technology buyers view online video. 80% read blogs. 37% post questions on social networking sites 16% engage customers on Facebook 69% are active in social networks. Webbiquity, Best Social Media Stats, Facts and Marketing Research of 2010

15. The Social Hotel Social media as asset and deep integration with networks Gen Y as customers (15 – 25) At moment of truth Who am I, What I do, What I look like, What I like to do Content well beyond room booking Content generation by hotel staff Bedside iPad (optional) Social Hub and content curationvs Web site Provides real time experiences

16. RS Hotel ? Conversations -> relationships -> transactions Prospects -> friends->fans -> contacts -> customers

18. Recommendations: Hotel Industry Participants 2011 Social media marketing for all destination assets Social Content mechanisms e.g. wikis and video Listening to conversations systematically Engage with travellers on social networks and knowledge sharing about destination independent of sales activity Establish a social media customer contact centre

19. Blog Pulse Trend Search

20. Social Media Customer Contact Centre Offers Calendar Travel Community B2C & B Social Media Press Release Centre Feeds Dashboard EDM Template Track opens Membership CRM Twitter Time schedule Data Acquisition From Mobile Apps FAQs Forum links

21. Community Manager/Curator Serve customers through listening and responding to needs vs. marketing or advertising. Focus on launching and growing the community through: Invite creators and influencers to become charter members of the community Create evangelists through providing exclusive access to new information, attendance at pre-launch party and have them provide feedback for future initiatives Start community with conversations and have community manager encourage sharing stories of problems, overcoming issues and successes Ensure community can be readily found with links from web sites, blogs and other popular social media. Accelerate community adoption through existing marketing efforts including emails newsletters and create a sense of urgency.

23. 2015 - Travel Industry Participants Facebook as a travel intermediary providing recommendations via 9 million Australian users of social networks to international visitors Connected and Instant bookings available via Apple iTravel, Facebook, Google Television or an equivalent consumer interface allowing processing of transactions. Splinternetin full operation with travel guides on iPad devices and travel experts available on demand via social networks directly imbedded into the social guides and travel blogs. Travel substitution products exhibiting Australia’s natural assets to be viewed and sold via High Definition 3D Immersive capabilities for Go nowhere Gamers and visitors in the pre-planning stage of purchasing an experience.

24. 2015 Key Scenario – ConsumerPerspective Travel substitution e.g. in home travel experiences available at time of dream and post travel Recommendations from family and friends Instant Booking of destination ground assets including everything from hotels, restaurant table, reservations, transportation and theme park rides Straight through processing of Booking -> check-in -> in-flight -> baggage Efficient and effective automated language translation e.g. Chinese

25. Go-Nowhere-Gamers “Perhaps worryingly, a new generation will reject travel altogether in favor of gaming, social networking and ‘always on’ media,” the report states. “As in-home leisure is becoming more engaging, a group of young people will emerge who do not go out any more.” Future of Free Time, April 2010