Some hotels have recently been noted for their close relationship to social networks. The Spanish group Meliá Hotels International, for example, wanted to go beyond the simple use of networking sites in its communication and marketing strategy by adapting the image of Twitter in one of its institutions. Located on the island of Majorca, the Tweet Hotel Experience has not only adopted the colors of its namesake network, but its whole philosophy. Indeed, it offers its guests to stay connected with each other by a single hashtag, and has established Tweet Concierge to meet all requests via Twitter.In a different style, Sydney's 1888 hotel preferred the photo-sharing site Instagram to build its identity. In addition to encouraging customers to hang a photo in its walls, with a studied décor, the hotel offers free nights to guests who have more than 10,000 subscribers on their Instagram page.Without going to the extreme, many hoteliers are present on social networks today. The favorite of the profession, however, remains Facebook, as shown by the results of a survey conducted among industry professionals by Hospitality ON and Olakala. 84 % of respondents reported having a Facebook page, 13% for Twitter, 11% for LinkedIn, 7% for Pinterest, and 2% for Instagram. Given the results of the investigation, it also appears that the majority of establishments do not have a real communication strategy on social networks: 54 % reported managing their presence on social networking sites internally and without a dedicated team, as compared to only 15% with a dedicated team and 5% externally via a specialized agency. The rest of the respondents rely on the network to which they belong.It must be said that the impact of implementing such a strategy is difficult to measure for most hotels. By developing a presence on social networks, most just want to make their establishments reach a wider audience and to improve its internet referencing, as they aim to appear as high as possible in search engine results. These benefits are difficult to quantify and some professionals interviewed by Hospitality ON admit to having an experimental presence on social networks, without really knowing what to expect in terms of results.For community management experts, the value-added of social networks for the hospitality industry lies in their role in the building of notoriety and brand loyalty. Via entertaining and informative pages or profiles, professionals must ensure that an increasing number of people look for the name of their hotel or share information about it to spread the word-of-mouth 2.0 and generate maximum direct sales.
