Marketing Management (I) : Strate

gic Marketing Management 

Juan Reyna
Juan Reyna
 Director of Sales & Marketing, Hilton Barcelona
 Director of Sales, InterContinental Abu Dhabi
 Deputy Director of Sales, Sheraton Abu Dhabi
 Hotelschool The Hague
Now its your turn:

Who are you and what drives you?

What would you like to take out of this

Masters?
Introduction to the course:

6 sessions: 5 classes + Exam

2 assignments: 1 group + 1 individual

Todays Session:

What is marketing?

What is the objective?

How is marketing applied to hospitality.

Types of marketing used in the hospitality industry

Key marketing reports

Key marketing metrics

Introduction to marketing plan assignment.

QUIZ
What is marketing?

“the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating,

communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have
value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large”

“a set of processes that are interconnected and interdependent

with other functions”

“Satisfying needs and wants through an exchange process”

“the management process responsible for identifying,

anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably”

“the management process that seeks to maximise returns to

shareholders by developing relationships with valued customers
and creating a competitive advantage”
What do YOU think Marketing is?

“………………………………”
The Dream!
The Nightmare…..
“If your guests are looking for a Marriott type hotel they
may not like it here. Therefore: If you have booked the Inn
for a wedding or other type of event anywhere in the
region and given us a deposit of any kind for guests to
stay at USGH there will be a $500 fine that will be
deducted from your deposit for every negative review of
USGH placed on any internet site by anyone in your party
and/or attending your wedding or event”
Did you know…..The fast food chain
reportedly paid more than $1 million to
include its mascot into Mayweather's
entourage during the walkout prior to
the highly anticipated "Fight of the
Century."
The Reality…..
Marketing Theoretical Framework
The 4 Ps of Marketing
Marketing Theoretical Framework
The Marketing Funnel
Marketing Strategies & Tactics

Business-to-Consumer (B2C) & Business-to-Business

(B2B)

Direct Selling

Earned Media/PR

Internet Marketing

Paid Media Advertising

Social Networks And Viral Marketing

Loyalty Programs
Marketing Strategies & Tactics

Contest Marketing

Networking & Industry Events

Search Engine Marketing SEM & S. E. Optimization SEO

Social Media Marketing

Segmentation

Email Campaigns

Influencer Marketing

Branding/Logo
Key question on Branding:

Why are Hotel companies creating

more and more brands instead of
consolidating and making one Brand
stronger?

Why different brands and not different

products?

Marriott Business Case

Marriott Business Case
How many brands does Marriott have?
Intro to Marketing applied to hotels

1. Hotel internet marketing

2. Types of hotel online marketing
3. Hotel social marketing
4. Hotel video marketing
5. Hotel SEO
Initial questions to ask yourself:

What offline channels are still available and useful to you?

What online channels should you prioritise?

How do you optimise the tools you use?

How do you track and measure results to make

adjustments?

Who do you work with to help achieve your potential?

Before you reach this point there are two more

important decisions to make. You must decide on:
- Your brand message
- Your key target market
If you don’t know what voice to speak with, or who
you want to hear it, business is unlikely to boom.

These two focus points will then inform how you plan the
rest of your hotel marketing strategies, and both are
linked to each other.

The brand message you run with will ultimately impact the
kind of guests you attract.

For example, if you want your hotel to be trendy and

steeped in innovation, you should think of marketing your
property to young travellers and couples.

Other factors will also come into play, including the

location of your hotel, its size, your budget, and the
budget of travellers and their purpose for travel.
Target Market

It’s important that you know your target market, so you

can craft your marketing strategy and be tailored in your
messages to potential customers.
Consider these traveller categories, and see which one/s
align with your hotel:
Consider these traveller categories, and see which one/s
align with your hotel:
Value Seekers
Luxury Travellers
Social Travellers
Independent Travellers
Researchers
Habitual Travellers
Value Seekers
Want to get the best out of their trip. Often travelling with
young children, they have a medium income and largely
fall between the ages of 25-34. They rely heavily on
reviews to help them find what they need, preferably a
trip near the beach, and usually research on a
smartphone.
Luxury Travellers
Are focused on enjoyment and willing to spend more to
obtain it. They often travel in a couple aged 25-49. They
seek cities that are hot and coastal and tend to look
closely at online reviews.

Quick question: What is luxury?

-
-
-
-

IHG case study:

IHG case study:
IHG has recently acquired:

What?

How?

For how much?

From who?

WHY?
IHG case study:
IHG has recently acquired:

What? Six Senses

How? Purchase/Aquisition

For how much? $300 (deal does not include real state)

From who? Pegasus Capital Advisors

WHY? IHG does not know what luxury is….

Social Travellers

Focus on sharing and engaging with others, usually

travelling in friend or family groups.

Their groups often include children so they

appreciate babysitting and child services. While they
have high to medium income they put a lot of faith in
word of mouth and recommendations from other
travellers. They tend to fall in the 25-49 age group.
Independent Travellers

Like to have a lot of control over their trip and thus

love to travel solo looking for adventure and cultural
experience over any particular climate.

They’re usually low or high earners who are relatively

young and quite likely to share reviews and engage
with social media.
Researchers

Maintain a very particular approach to booking their

trips. They want to make sure their experience is as
good as it possibly could be.
They not only thoroughly research their destination
and accommodation but also restaurants and
activities.
Given this, a lot of it is done on laptop devices.
They’re commonly higher earners travelling as a
couple aged 25-49.
Each stage of the journey is usually backed up
listening to the voice of other consumers through
sites like TripAdvisor.
Habitual Travellers

Look for simplicity and convenience by travelling to the

same destinations repeatedly.
They place more stock in relaxation than activities and are
commonly in the 35-64 age bracket. Mostly male, they
tend to be lower income travellers.
The type of hotel you run – budget, boutique, luxury,
independent, or a chain – will make a huge difference
to how you market your hotel and who you market
to, so the initial research and analysis you do is
extremely important.

Once you have confirmed your brand and target

market, that’s when you can divert your attention to
all the nuts and bolts of marketing your hotel and
making it a visible, viable booking option for
travellers.
Hotel internet marketing
Reports say that the online bookings make up almost
60% of all bookings. Half of those who do book
digitally do so from a mobile advice.
It’s an overwhelming number which indicates the risk
you run if you aren’t employing a digital marketing
strategy to attract and convert guests.
One of the reasons people embrace technology and
any online resource is because it clarifies and
accelerates their task or experience.
These virtues should be front of mind for your hotel
when creating a website or an advertisement on the
internet.
The great thing about being online is that there are
so many different ways you can engage with
travellers. Statistics will tell you a strong social
media presence is essential, as is a strategy
around video marketing.
Because of the different platforms within digital
media, the potential for hotel marketers to be
creative is much greater and enables them to
connect with a lot more customers. It might be the
only way to reach customers on the other size of the
world or specific markets like Chinese travellers.
Some travellers engage with beautiful images, some
prefer videos, others are content to take a deep dive
into written information. Digital media allows your
hotel to create this, on brand, all at the same time
too. Think about what your unique selling points
are and the best way to communicate these to your
audience.
Most importantly, everything you communicate
must be personalised wherever possible.

What this means is that what you say and what you
offer to customers must be tailored to their specific
demographic.

If they’re a young female businesswoman, you must

know what a young female businesswoman wants
and communicate accordingly.

Personalisation is something guests thrive on and in

today’s market; not providing it spells danger to your
reviews and repeat business.
Types of hotel online marketing

Hotel marketing is now predominantly done

online, given consumers no longer have to rely on
offline advertisements like billboards, posters or
television and radio advertisements.

In the past the equation was much simpler, but in

recent years there’s been an explosion of
complexities.

Firstly, just the concept of online hotel advertising,

and now the myriad of ways to explore this option
and execute strategies.
That’s why there may not be a ‘right’ way to
advertise on these various channels, but we can
certainly offer some advice on where your hotel
needs to be to attract guests and some tactics to
help optimise the experience.
Hotel social marketing

With social media becoming so important in the

everyday lives of consumers there is no doubt that it
presents a significant opportunity for hotels to
capture the attention of potential guests.

Not all content will engage them but travel-related

content likely will because it activates your guest’s
imagination.

Used creatively, travel content on social media can

have a transportive effect on viewers, inspiring them
to go on their own journey.

Social media also offers your hotel business a range

of options when distributing your content, meaning
strategy and targeting uses become extremely
valuable.
Marketing your hotel on Instagram

Instagram is one of the most effective social media

marketing platforms available to hotel owners in today’s
social and digital environment.

Instagram now has more than one billion users.

It offers a simple, clean feed, it’s completely mobile, and it

makes everything look great.

And the good news for hoteliers is that it’s particularly

popular with travellers and holidaymakers.

Marriott Hotels’ Instagram account has 287,000 followers

while Hilton Hotels & Resorts has 226,000 followers, and
IHG’s InterContinental brand has 146,000 followers.
Recently there’s been a rollout of advertising for brands
on Instagram.

Many pages already have the action buttons to ‘Call’,

‘Email’ and ‘Get Directions’. Now select businesses will be
able to include ‘Book’, ‘Get Tickets’, ‘Reserve’, or ‘Start
Order’.

As for direct messaging, businesses can now see

important new customer messages in their main inbox,
instead of in the pending folder.

They can also mark messages with a star and filter

conversations to make it easier to follow up with enquiries.
A Facebook-style news-feed algorithm

Gone are the days when Instagram was a free-for-all:

based purely on chronological order. Instagram itself says
you can now ’see the moments you care about first’,
through the help of a highly complex algorithm
determining which content Instagram believes a user
would like to see.

This is based on:

1. Likelihood you’ll be interested in the content
2. Your relationship with the person posting
3. Timeliness of the post
If hotels provide the high quality, aspirational content that
Instagram users are looking for, the Instagram algorithm
could actually be highly advantageous.

Instagram is growing in popularity with older users

Don’t assume that Instagram users are outside your target

demographic. Although skewed towards the young, it is
growing in popularity among older age groups.
Hotel video marketing

Video is becoming an increasingly popular medium with

hotel guests.

It’s engaging, easy to digest, and easy to share with

others.

For hotel marketers, it should be looked at as a first

priority when creating strategies to attract bookings.

A quick look at YouTube and the one billion people

watching more than six billion hours of video each month
will tell you how popular videos are.

Humans are notoriously emotional animals and the best

way to engage them on this level is through video.

Consider that people remember 20% of what they hear,

30% of what they see, but 70% of what they hear and see.
So here’s the case for video marketing:

The likelihood of your site appearing on the first page of

Google search results increases by 53 times by adding a
video to your website

People are 10 times more likely to engage with and share

video content

20% of users read text while 80% will watch a video with
the same content

74% of all internet traffic in 2017 will be video. In two

years, the number will rise to 80%
At your property, bookings are 67% more likely to happen
when a video tour is available

The click-through rate for introductory emails that include

a video increases by 96%

76% of social media users would share a video if it was

entertaining

Travellers love to find inspiration through video,

with around 65% of them watching video when
thinking about taking a trip and choosing a
destination, with a further 54% using video when
choosing accommodation.
However, you need to do more than create a pretty
collage of images with a backing track if you truly want
your content to be amplified.
Use the storytelling strengths of video to send a real
message.

Emotions play a massive part so this is where your efforts

should be focused.

Try to instil awe in viewers with your videos to reach new

guests, drive site traffic, and share your hotel’s story.
Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts: ‘It’s in our nature’

This commercial is all about the punchline. Using stunning

imagery and increasingly touching music, Shangri-La
place the environment as backdrop to deliver a message
on kindness and companionship, showing guests no
matter where they come from, they will be accepted and
safely harboured within the hotel.
SEO

Considering the first page of search engine results

receive more than 90% of all traffic, for your hotel to
be found on Google you need to prioritise key
components of ‘search engine optimisation’.

The first page of Google is such a competitive

battleground and your hotel needs to get everything
right to be in the eyes of prospective guests.

With Google constantly updating its algorithms and

strategy, traffic coming in from multiple devices, and
inconsistent SEO practices from travel websites, it’s
hard for hotels to get a clear picture of what is
working and what needs to be done to increase
traffic and conversions in the future.
SEO

SEM
Here’s six ways to keep Google happy:

1. Plan your keywords effectively

This requires you to approach the task from the

guest’s perspective.

Think about what travellers would be searching

for on Google when planning their travel and
looking for hotels to book in your area.

Once you’ve thought about this you can develop a

list of keywords you want to sprinkle throughout
your website and analyse the traffic they drive before
you implement them.

A list of 10 is always a good start. It makes it easier

for you to research and evaluate their effectiveness,
and quicker for you to integrate them into your site.
2. Create a ‘Google My Business’ account

Google My Business is a free listing that optimises all

your hotel’s information into the right fields and
makes it easier for travellers to get the details they
want.

This includes your hotel’s address and phone

number, Google maps geo-marker, hotel photos,
guest reviews, and other relevant information such
as amenities.

Providing you complete your listing properly, with the

features listed above, Google

My Business makes your hotel website instantly more

accessible to travellers searching on Google.
3. Consider using Google Hotel Ads

While Google Hotel Ads is a paid service it’s an

effective way to get noticed on Google and Google
Maps, and it allows guests to immediately begin the
booking process.

The other benefit is that you’ll only pay once your ad

generates a click or a booking, and will only appear
when travellers are searching for something that
meets the specifics of your property.

It allows travellers to filter their results to suit their

needs, meaning the ratio of bookings you get per
click is likely to be higher and worth your investment.
5. Treat content as an essential

High quality content is always going to please Google’s

algorithms and it will increase your chances of converting
site visitors into bookings too.

Consider publishing a post at least once a week, sharing it

on your social media pages, and sending emails to your
database too.

Content also means visual content. High quality images

will help attract attention to your website on listings and
impress your site visitors, and you can attach keywords to
your images. You should consider investing in a certified
photographer to implement a 360 degree tour of your
property. This will appear on your Google listing as ‘See
Inside’.

The more content you have the more backlinks and

external links you can use to strengthen your appeal to
Google’s algorithm and also increase the amount of traffic
flowing through to your website.
6. Prioritise online reviews

No one is going to book a hotel on face value. You can

promote your property all you want but in the grand
scheme of things, travellers will always trust their peers
over you, at least before the first time they stay.

This is why you need verified reviews visible on search

engines and metasearch sites, preferably five-star
responses. To give your hotel credibility you need to
respond to as many reviews as possible, especially any
negative comments.

Guests want to see that you care about their experience

and are working to improve your service and get to know
them better.
There is no quick fix to your SEO and Google
rankings, and there are many other tactics you can use
than are listed here. It requires regular vigilance and
updating on your behalf to maintain your Google rankings.

It’s important that you utilise Google Analytics to collect

and learn from data. Analysis is important for any strategy
you put in place at your hotel.

By gaining more information on who might be searching

for a hotel like yours and what content is of interest to
them, you can really start optimising every aspect of your
website.

Google Analytics can help your staff:

Assess the traffic volume of keywords
Measure page views of content
Record where traffic is coming from
Decipher what devices visitors are using
Understand which traffic sources have the highest
conversion rate
Assignment: Marketing Plan

2 page concentrated Marketing Plan on any tourism

or hospitality related product.

Key points to take into consideration:

- The Company & the Product

- Market
- Positioning
- SWOT
- Competition
- Marketing objectives:
- Pricing
- Online and offline plans