The panel comprised:
• Grahame Tate, Managing Director Asia Pacific, IDeaS a SAS Company (left)
• Arnaud Girodon, General Manager, Indigo Pearl, Phuket, Thailand
• Brett Henry, Vice President, Marketing, Abacus 
• Yeoh Siew Hoon, Editor, Web In Travel

Q: How widely do you think that social media is accepted amongst hoteliers in Asia? Is there an industry-wide push to become more adept with this new technology or are some hotels (or hotel groups) doing a better job than others?

Yeoh Siew Hoon: I think all hoteliers know they need to engage with social media. What they don’t know is how to do it in a way that’s both meaningful for the customer and effective for their business. It’s easy to set up a Facebook fan page or a Twitter feed – but you’ve got to make sure you have the resources to keep these going … The ones who do it better are those who have decided from the outset this is just another channel to be managed like others, and there’s got to be commitment from the top to see it through to the bitter and hopefully sweet end.

Arnaud Girodon: Social media is increasingly becoming an essential communication tool for the travel/tourism & hotel industry. According to a recent study published by a travel industry leader, only 28 % of travel business and hotels in Asia-Pacific are engaged in social media. However … research published by Forester claims that by 2011, 82 % of the Asian travel industry will be using social media and the biggest barrier to success is the lack of knowledge on how to properly manage social media. From a global perspective, Western hotel groups are certainlymore social media savvy than Asian hotel groups.

Q: What should Asian hoteliers be using social media for?

Arnaud Girodon: Social media is an invaluable communication tool, as it allows hoteliers to share information, provide real time updates and increase sales. Social media, as marketing tool has changed old passive/reactive communication and selling to active and proactive customer engagement. In its simplest form, social media can be used to push out special offers and promotion via Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn or other outlets.

Grahame Tate: Social media is all about building relationships and community. In order to build these, it’s important to engage proactively with your customers and give them something they can’t get in the other channels of communications used by your hotel. One of the most interesting ways that social media is being used by a variety of big corporations is to proactively deal with issues that arise in terms of service or room problems when they’re broadcasted by VIP guests or other influential figures. By taking the initiative of dealing with problematic customers online, you show your guests (potential and otherwise) that your guests mean more than a room rate.

Q: How should Asian hoteliers prioritise social media outlets? Or should they look to engage through all social media platforms?

Brett Henry: Every property and brand will have different answers to this question. If you are a property based in China who targets Chinese travellers the answers would be completely different than if you were a property based in Singapore primarily targeting North American and European travellers. You have to understand who are your most valuable customers and then understand where they are online in order to develop a meaningful, measurable social media engagement programme.

Grahame Tate: There is an alignment of brands in hotels with various social media activities / sites and strategies. It does not make sense for hotels to be participating in social media spaces that are significantly different to their brand image.

Q: How is social media influencing who hotels market themselves to? Will this change in the future as social media usage becomes more widely accepted amongst businesses and consumers alike?

Yeoh Siew Hoon: It allows hotels to be more targeted – by interests – and, most importantly, to get more personal with an individual customer. I think it could change loyalty marketing. The word “loyalty” has lost its value in today’s marketplace where a hotel group can have millions and millions of “loyal” customers, defined as members of their frequent guest programmes. Social media could allow hotels to target the top 1% or top 10% and create a “hyper loyalty” programme that has a deeper, more personal relevance to the customers. 

Brett Henry: Social media is already part of the mainstream marketing and hotels have already adjusted their marketing – it’s simply the levels of sophistication that varies. Even if you think you are doing nothing with your property, consumers on sites like Trip Advisor have already changed how your hotel is marketed.

Q: What should Asian Hoteliers look to be communicating (ie – what content or messages) through social media channels to ensure their relevance and that they are engaging with partners and consumers in a meaningful way?

Yeoh Siew Hoon: It’s important to not just push offers, because then you train your customers to look out for them before they buy. The Internet has become that kind of “commoditised” medium and it’s important to not let social media fall into the same trap. Social media enables you to have more interesting dialogue with customers. Share with them things they wouldn’t normally know about your company, make it personal, allow open engagement whereby they feel free to give feedback, positive or negative. Have faith in human nature that when people are allowed to express openly, they usually want to share positive experiences. Yes, there will always be the whingers but why shut down on a collective force for good for the sake of shutting up one or two dissenting voices? Dissent adds credibility. Differences add diversity. 

Q: Are there any social media pitfalls that Asian hoteliers should be aware of, or look out for?

Arnaud Girodon: Social media is no longer an optional “experiment”, marketers are rapidly increasing their budgets in this space and trying to leverage social media to best connect with consumers. Social media is a low risk/high reward channel; however there are several pitfalls hoteliers must be aware in order to avoid social mediocrity. Hoteliers must outgrow applying outdated sales and marketing metrics on social media due to the dynamic ever-shifting environment of social media – social media doesn’t exist in vacuum. The second issue to tackle is the need to foster a culture that aligns with the consumer expectations: having the right people and systems in place to provide faster reaction times, authentic responses, and genuine engagement. The third drawback is lack of a proactive and holistic social media strategy aligned with the company’s overall sales and marketing strategy. The fourth major pitfall is the validity, authenticity and security related issue with social media, hotels feel vulnerable and lack total control on what is published about them online. There is a universal rise of obsession, regarding company reputation and brand image protection phobia caused by “brand and image vultures/destroyers”. 

Yeoh Siew Hoon: I think it’s important not to start it simply because it seems like a good idea and … then abandon it. What many hoteliers are tending to abdicate responsibility to “young people who know this stuff” and treat it a pure sales push platform, it’s important to use this technology to connect with your audience in a way that other communications mediums don’t allow.

Q: How can Asian hotelier’s best measure their social media activities and those of partners / customers of their business?

Arnaud Girodon: Asian hoteliers should adopt a holistic and multilayer approach to measuring success with social media. Campaign-specific metrics, such as traffic from Twitter, the number of fans on Facebook or ROI from Facebook ads, are extremely important, however social media takes time to develop and grow, and therefore a considerable social media strategy is essential to succeed in the online world.

Grahame Tate: There are three main types of analytics for social media, each providing a different type of insight:

Descriptive statistics: This level of analytics provides basic performance information by channel. It answers questions like “How many friends and followers do I have?” or “Which sites are most productive?” Descriptive statistics are very useful in the tactical, day-to-day management of social media programs.

Social Network Analysis: This analysis identifies influencers within your social networks. Not just the prolific writers or tweeters, and not just the ones with the most friends and followers, but those who are listened to the most.

Social Media Analysis: Social media analysis uses text analytics to turn volumes of unstructured text data into meaningful, actionable insight. Text mining, like data mining, uncovers linked topics, and can provide insight into what is important to the customer base. Sentiment analysis uses natural language processing to understand how customers feel about your brand, your products and your services. Sentiment should be tracked over time, so you can identify trends, or analyze the effectiveness of a marketing effort.

Q: To what extent can consumers impact on a hotels brand perception through positive or negative social media interactions? Is this something Asian hoteliers should be aware of, and if so – what can be done to help address this situation?

Grahame Tate: Consumers have potential capability to widely influence how a brand or a hotel is perceived. Interestingly when social media first started to gain some traction in this area, it was a “bible” that consumers would refer to and believe in. At the start it had a high level of accuracy and relevance. Over time we have seen consumers become savvier in taking the reviews with a “grain of salt” and doing more extensive research through multiple Social media channels rather than take one site’s review as a definitive answer.

Brett Henry: Social media goes beyond reputation management in protecting brand reputation. It must be used to also identify and sustain travel product differentiation. A negative tweet can be instantaneously multiplied into thousands of views. To reap the best benefits from social media, hoteliers need to accept that they cannot control the conversation. Use real tools to monitor the dialogue and understand the difference between a once off problem and a negative trend that will rouse concerns.

Q: What impact will social media have on the way that Asian hoteliers go about their business in five years from now?

Arnaud Girodon: As mentioned previously, research claims that by the end of this year, 82% of all Asian hotels will be using social media; however the biggest barrier in this medium is the lack of knowledge. Asian hoteliers must capitalize on this “novelty” by proactively joining the conversation. According to a recent report by Borrell Associates, US companies are expected to spend about $38 billion on social media in 2015 (compared to $4.5 billion in 2009). We believe that these estimates are certainly conservative ones. As time passes, and relationships with connected consumers strengthen, business’s online presence can only grow.

Brett Henry: Some hospitality outlets have adopted Foursquare (http://foursquare.com/), a new social networking location-based application … accessed only via mobile. It allows users to connect with friends and update their location. Foursquare has a list of locations worldwide that registered foursquare users check-in via GPRS to get dining, leisure, shopping and other information. To make it more engaging, points are awarded for “checking in” at member venues.

Yeoh Siew Hoon: The pace of change is so fast who knows what will come along and by then, social media will become as mainstream as websites are today. Everything evolves. What’s new today becomes a hygiene factor tomorrow – think gyms and spas in hotels. Once luxuries, today commodities. just like free Internet access in hotels. This too will become a hygiene factor in all hotels – and I hope we don’t have to wait five years for that to happen.

Featured image credit (Global Communication): Ockra/iStock