Social Media Strategies for Hotels

The world is on the web today. Our generation is the privileged one!

Number of people with internet access continues to rise, so does the time spent online. As per statistics, India is now spending more than 25% of its online time on Social Media.

Social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr and many others provide an opportunity to connect with your friends, family, relatives and customers. Also, it provides an excellent opportunity to meet new people and make new friends.

Even from Business point of view, Social Media boasts of many advantages. For one, you can respond instantly to your customers’ queries and provide solutions. Also, spreading out the word in social media with relevant and compelling content is easier and cheaper than traditional advertising. There are many more such advantages Social media offers to Business houses.

In such a scenario, being an hotelier we should not undermine the power of Social Media. Let’s have a deeper look at how social media can impact business & what strategies can be useful for the hoteliers to adopt for its success:

Information Dissemination

Hotels should own a Social media page to explain the luxury and comfort they are providing to their guests. Hoteliers can easily share new offers, new products or services, season specials, client testimonials and significantly more about their hotels with customers. Hotels can also have their own dynamic blog to speak with clients and overhaul them with the fresh business updates.

Social Media Store

Hotel Online booking system can be promoted through Social Media Store. It will help in keeping hotels full and lively with guests coming-in all the time!

Also, many hotels these days have malls or shopping plazas inside their premises. Such sales can be done on social media as well, primarily as a branding exercise than a revenue generation activity.

Just-In Time Marketing

Hoteliers can offer customized deals and offers to customers in real-time based on customer’s search data.

One example can be, Hotels can collect personal data like Anniversary/Birthday of loyal customers and wish them through their Social media portal.

Social Media Marketing

It varies depending on Social media channel chosen, for example, marketing on Twitter is completely different from marketing on LinkedIn. So, before starting social media marketing for your hotel, you should list the relevant social media websites and get content accordingly. To give an overview:

• In Facebook, you can promote your hotel using videos, images, text – quotes, articles etc. Through Facebook you can reach out to more and more potential customers and boast of your Hotel. Also, you can keep track of your customers, solve their queries and turn them into loyal patrons.
• To promote in Twitter, ask your marketing team to create a hashtag related to the hotel and request your guests to promote the hashtag. Try and take the hashtag to the Trend section of Twitter for more visibility.
• Instagram can help you in promoting exquisite pictures of your hotel rooms, lobby, restaurants etc. You can also promote an event through Instagram by showcasing images of the decoration, guests, food etc. 
• LinkedIn can help you reach potential competent employees for your Hotels. Starting from senior management levels to all the way junior levels, almost every professional keeps his/her LinkedIn profile up-to-date.  Thus you can know all about a person, professionally, through LinkedIn. Also, as we all know, most of the business for a 5 star comes through business conferences or business meets. LinkedIn can prove to be a powerful tool if you wish to reach out to such high profile individuals or organizations.
• YouTube is a social media website, through which you can promote videos related to promotional campaigns, customers testimonials etc.
• Hotels can also use Tumblr to publish online, hyperlink blogs and interlink with other social media websites.
  

On-Going Customer Engagement

It’s advisable to interact with your guests through Social Media, to give them a personal touch. By interaction I mean, try and reply to their queries/complaints as soon as possible, create online events, quiz & contests and request them to participate etc.

Service Recovery

Hotels can also use Social media websites for improvisation. For this, hotels can ask their customers to participate in feedback sessions, surveys, polls, testimonials, reviews & ratings etc. Do ensure that unfavorable opinions expressed on social media website are addressed in a transparent and timely manner.

By creative planning and relevant content, Hotels can easily impress their existing guests and attract new guests. Hotels must have the ability to market their luxuries over the social media to seize user attention.

Friend this is from our side. Feel free to contact us in case of any queries.

Wishing  you all Good Luck in using Social Media!

What Supplies Guests are actually looking forward to in a Hotel Room?

Being a passionate traveler, I have been lucky to experience hospitality from many hotels across India. In hotels, apart from well-mannered staff and good hygiene levels, one thing that I look forward to is ‘Guest Supplies’. Generally, these amenities are crucial to give guests 'home away from home' feeling.

Liking and preferences of different guests vary. And these can vary for things as minute as degree of softness of pillows to fragrance of flowers!!

In hospitality industry, the aim of the service provider is to delight and pamper its customers. I personally believe that standard of a hotel is defined by the kind of services and facilities it offers to its customers.

For a procurement manager, satisfying its guests is like doing a rope walk between managing budget and fulfilling guests’ wimps.

So, it would really help if someone can decode the mystery of ‘What Supplies Guests are actually Looking Forward to’ in priority order.

But before answering this question, it’s important to segment consumers. For simplicity, let’s segment them into: Budget Guests and Premium Guests.

Expectations of these two kind of guests can be poles apart.

Let’s try to look at these expectations in finer detail:

• Budget Guests
• These are your value-centric guests. They expect you to provide good quality services at an affordable price.
• In this case, hoteliers are advised to focus on their basic needs. This group of guests might get satisfied with things like timely room service, water bottles in the room, clean bed-sheets and so on.
• Premium Guests
• These guests are quality-centric. They expect you to take care of all there comforts, irrespective of costs involved.
• In such a case, hotels need to add a “wow factor” in their services. For example, a bottle of wine or a basket of exotic fruits can seal the deal.

Now that we have gathered a basic understanding of expectations of different guests, let’s generalize it into a holistic concept and answer our key question ‘What Supplies Guests are actually looking forward to in a Room?’

To answer this, I will take reference from the best theory available on needs and wants, i.e. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

• Physiological Needs:
• These are basic needs which any guest (be it budget or premium guests) will expect from any hotel room.
• Example: Water bottles, bed, bed sheets & pillow cases etc.

• Need for Security:
• As for this need, guests look forward to personal security in their rooms.
• Example: Door locks, Hygienic toiletries, Privacy in room etc.

• Needs for Belonging:
• As per this need, hoteliers should be able to convince guests that they are being taken care of.
• Example: Well-mannered & friendly 24X7 Room service, Doctor-On-Call & other on call services etc.

• Esteem Needs:
• After all who doesn't like being respected? To showcase their gratitude & respect, hoteliers can give a personal touch to rooms.
• Example: Exotic Fruits & flowers basket, Bottle of wine etc.

• Self-Actualization Needs:
• This is the most difficult stage to fulfill. To attain self-actualization, hotels will need to comfort guests in all possible manner- rooms, events – everything should be designed according to guests’ choice.
• Example: Artistically designed rooms, specially designed itineraries & events.

While budget guests might get happy by merely first three steps, a premium guest will need to be taken through complete ‘Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs’ to be satisfied.

To summarize, I would like to say:

First step starts with understanding your hotel’s target segment and consumer mind set (Budget or Premium). 

Second step will be to classify various services based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

These two steps will help you in devising a sound strategy. After all this, final step is to procure items at the best possible rate and full-fill your guests' desires.

Hoteliers, now that you know the answer to one of the most difficult question in Hospitality, I wish you all the very best for procurement.

Keep your Guests Happy!

5 Avenues to find best Hospitality Professionals

Hospitality Industry is largely service centric. The quality of services a hotel provides to its guests can make or break its reputation.

If we talk about numbers, Hospitality contributes 12.4% to the country’s employment chart. As per the Ministry of External Affairs, Indian hospitality sector is growing at the rate of 14% aggregated annually. As the industry grows, so does the need for talent.

And when one talks about best Hospitality talent – first country that comes to my mind is - INDIA.

Hospitality is imbibed in us Indians since our childhood. Even our culture says “atithi devo bhav” (guest is god).

Still, finding the best talent, fitting ones exact needs can be a tricky affair.

Hotels across the world are making use of state of the art technologies to attract right talent.

Let’s look at some of the avenues you can use to attract best talent:

• Social Networks
• Be it attracting customers or attracting employees, you can’t overlook the power of social media.
• Many HR managers across the world have made LinkedIn a permanent tool in their arsenals. Even Facebook is often used to find good talent on a short notice.
•  As for employees, they can benefit from portals like Glass-Door to get a good idea of work culture in company of their choice.
• Campus Interviews
• When ‘Catch them early” is the call.
• Advantage with this is that you can get some really bright students full of vigor and determination at fairly decent salaries.
• Training of the resources is a huge responsibility in such cases. Not to forget time and money involved in visiting campuses.
• Career Expo
• Career expo or job fair is yet another hunting place for recruiters.
• This is an age old, tried and tested avenue. Job seekers from every nook and cranny come to such expos. Easily, career expos are the best place to gather primary data on job market and to personally meet potential recruits.
• Human Resource Management Systems
• These include some of the most hi-tech and widely used systems and software.
• Taleo, Oracle, Kenexa from IBM, Lumesse include some of these. They take care of most of your recruitment needs and make data available at one spot. 
• Well-known firms like eQuest, Broadbean etc. sell high-quality data-analytic tools to boost the recruitment process.
• Online Portals
• Portals like naukri, monster etc. have become an inclusive part of almost every company.
• This is a common step almost every recruiter takes while selecting candidates.

A good HR personnel makes use of a mix of above mentioned alternatives to come up with an effective recruitment strategy.

I wish everyone a good and successful recruitment process.

Happy Talent Search!

7 Commandments to Successful Hotel–Supplier Relation

Hospitality industry is probably the most customer centric industry possible. Whatever an hotelier does is keeping the guests in mind.

But we don't live in an ideal world. Do we?

Tastes and preferences of guests can be as distinguished as day from night!

As such, an hotelier needs to be always running around to ensure every wimp and fancy of guests is taken care of.

In such a scenario a trusted and efficient set of suppliers can be a boon. If an hotelier is able to select good set of suppliers, half the battle is won! Isn't it.

Hotel and supplier’s relation is one of trust and mutual respect. They are like two sides of same coin, with common purpose of serving the end consumer.

A supplier taking care of a few simple attributes can help hotels a great deal. Let’s try to understand some of these attributes:

1.     For a supplier, Respecting quality and time frame of demand is most important. Nothing can hamper a relation the way last minute cancellation can.
2.     A supplier, who is ahead of industry curve and can provide new and innovative products continuously is ensuring that he leaves a permanent stamp in a hotelier’s mind.
3.     A supplier who is well connected in the industry can ensure even the trickiest demands of hotels are met. Such a suppliers is an asset that no hotel will want to part with.
4.     A supplier needs to ensure that he/ she complies with all the necessary certifications and quality control checks as stated by the government.
5.     A supplier willing to be flexible as per hotel’s requirements earns added respect and gratitude in hotel’s eyes. Hotels generally ensure that such a supplier grows with them.
6.     Framing an object-oriented policy and using latest technology in business always proves to be beneficial for both Hotels and Suppliers.
7. An ideal supplier is one that sees itself as a business partner rather than just provider of goods. Suppliers are a very important part of hospitality value chain, it’s important that they consider themselves that way too.

In totality, Hospitality Industry is like a giant cob-wheel, with hoteliers and suppliers different instruments in it. A cob-wheel can’t function if either part breaks loose, so is true for Hospitality Industry too.

As far as maintaining relation is concerned, it’s simple, respect each other and deliver your best to the end consumers.

Hotels, maintain an healthy relationship with your Suppliers and work towards the best!