INTERNATIONAL REPORT—Facebook is fast becoming more than a customer relationship tool for many independent properties and chains. Many hotels now offer room-booking technology on their Facebook pages, which is leading to incremental sales. 23 March 2011 8:27 AM By Christine Blank HotelNewsNow.com contributor cblankwriter@yahoo.com

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24 March 2011
Facebook leads to hotel room revenue
23 March 2011 8:27 AM
By Christine Blank
HotelNewsNow.com contributor
cblankwriter@yahoo.com
INTERNATIONAL REPORT—Facebook is fast becoming more than a
customer relationship tool for many independent properties and chains.
Many hotels now offer room-booking technology on their Facebook pages,
which is leading to incremental sales.
“There is real commerce that is starting to grow on Facebook. Companies
like Delta (Airlines) are putting booking engines on Facebook, and Sony
just started a deal where consumers can rent movies,” said Michael
Hraba, owner of Hraba Hospitality Consulting in San Mateo, California.
For the independent properties that Hraba
Hospitality advises, Facebook booking engines do
not yet produce a lot of revenue, but Hraba
believes it is necessary to offer the option. “If
you are there, you (won’t) miss the ones who do
want to book. You are available in every possible
way your guests need you,” Hraba said.
Facebook conversions growing
“Over the course of 2009, we saw the volume of
direct referrals from Facebook to hotel websites
grow. The conversion rate was higher for
Facebook than it was for TripAdvisor and other
travel review sites,” said Douglas Quinby, senior Michael Hraba
director of research for PhoCusWright, a travel owner
Hraba Hospitality Consulting
research firm in Sherman, Connecticut. The
conversion rate on direct referrals from traveler review sites to hotel
supplier websites ranged from 4% to 6% in 2009, while conversion from
Facebook to hotel websites was 8%.
Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide has provided a booking function
within a tab on Facebook for all of its brands and properties since it has
been on Facebook.
“Conversion on Facebook is smaller but close to conversion on our brand
websites. (Starwood’s Facebook fans) start to see other people’s
experiences at the properties,” said David Godsman, VP of global Web for
Starwood.
While Starwood primarily uses Facebook to “engage” with its guests, the
company’s executives realize the valuable e-commerce potential on the
global social-networking site. To that end, Westin Hotels & Resorts in
January introduced a “Shop” tab on its properties’ Facebook pages. The
shopping widget serves as a fully-contained shopping transaction, instead
of working as a link from Westin’s website.
“What we are seeing now is an emergence of technology that that we
didn’t see six months ago. There is an opportunity for ourselves and other
hotel brands to enable these type of transactions within Facebook,”
Godsman said.
Facebook booking engines
While most hotel companies have a booking link within Facebook that
takes users to their websites to make transactions, Bolongo Bay Beach
Resort in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, sports a unique, free-standing
booking engine on the social-networking site.
“We had a hotel-and-air booking engine on our website for years, so we
asked our Web developer to put that on Facebook. They can click on the
Reservations tab on Facebook and book rooms,” said Katarina Doumeng,
director of sales, marketing and Internet for Bolongo Bay.
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The hotel-and-air engine has proven successful
for Bolongo Bay.
“In the last four weeks, for example, we had 207
people on Facebook who either booked or
checked rates. That is big, since we are a 62-
room property,” Doumeng said. Because the
property has made a concerted effort to interact
with its guests on Facebook, it has grown its fans
from 300 in 2009 to 9,000 this year.
Shopping on social networks
Katarina Doumeng The booking success that hoteliers are
director of sales, experiencing on Facebook makes sense because
marketing and Internet
Bolongo Bay
consumers are using social-media sites much
more for travel research and purchases than in
the past, according to PhoCusWright. Nearly 13% of social-network users
use social networks to shop for travel, according to the firm’s “Traveler
Technology Survey 2010.”
In addition, 35% of U.S. online travelers interacted with a travel company
on an online social network in the past year. Not only are guests talking
with their friends and family about travel on Facebook, but they are also
being served travel-related ads, Quinby said.
Given such engagement, other hotels are quickly jumping on the
Facebook booking bandwagon. The Hyatt Regency Irvine in Irvine,
California, for example, recently became the second Hyatt hotel globally
to offer room booking capability on its Facebook page.
“We believe social media is part of the future of how guests will interface
with hotels prior to checking in,” said Colleen Kareti, manager of Hyatt
Regency Irvine.
While Fairmont Hotels &
Resorts does not yet have
a booking function on its
Facebook pages,
executives plan to add the
capability soon. “Part of
the audience does want
and expect to find out
about offers. They may feel
excluded if they don’t hear
about offers,” said David
Doucette, executive
director of internet
marketing for Fairmont.
Bolongo Bay
Fairmont's social-media policy is to have 80% of its information about
travel, hotel and its hotel's food and beverages options. Only 20% of
Facebook posts have anything to do with travel offers.
Meanwhile, Fairmont’s Swissotel brand in Zurich, Switzerland, is realizing
limited success with a booking link on its Facebook page. “We have seen
a slight increase in conversions, but it is not dramatic. Their activity on
Facebook is not as evolved as Fairmont’s is yet, so we don’t want to use
that as a case study for analyzing potential,” Doucette said.
Despite the current and future success with hotels’ e-commerce activities
on Facebook, hoteliers still say their primary purpose on social-
networking sites is to develop relationships with their guests.
“We didn’t enter this space with a commercialization concept—we entered
it to really re-define the relationships we could have with our guests,”
Starwood’s Godsman said. “We haven’t tried to get as many fans as
possible. Instead, we have a really engaged group of people.”
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http://www.hotelnewsnow.com/Articleprint.aspx?print=true&ArticleId=5225 24-03-2011