Social Media Marketing for sustainable tourism development

Manoj KUMAR

June 2011

Vatel International Business School, Nimes, France

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Abstract The world of communication is fast changing today. The modes of communication are changed

by the advent of internet based social networking websites. The social networking websites are shrinking the contact time and contact base. Most people, companies and entities can reach a worldwide audience at phenomenally lower costs. The strength of this new channel lies in the ease of use, availability to consumers and most importantly the effectivity of the communication. The results can be seen in real time and constant stream of analytical tools are available to better market yourself or products.

It has been noted that the implications of social media for the hospitality industry is immense. But at the same it also has been noted that there is void of real and creative strategy to effectively use this medium. Most large organizations outsource the working and operations to PR agencies. Smaller organizations meagrely shadow the strategies of larger organizations. There are few game changers which are able to benefit from its social media efforts tremendously.

Sustainable tourism development will gain popularity and strength by increased consumer awareness. For e.g. Nike changed because of the constant glare of the public. Companies and local economies and population will tremendously benefit from increased awareness. A raised awareness will translate into profits for partner companies and development of local population. With an al-ternative source of income the environment is pardoned. Thus I felt an effort must be made to give competitive edge to sustainable tourism development projects.

This dissertations objectives are To understand consumer point of view and Create an internet based marketing plan Aiming at Increasing consumer awareness and recognition worldwide, Cre-ate a consumer facing entity which is loved by people Thus making it profitable for companies to behave responsibly and to Build loyal communities which will support efforts in difficult times and Lastly increase sales

Contact details Business school Name - Vatel International Business School, Nimes, France, School website - www.vatel.com Original work by - Manoj KUMAR Website - http://digitalhospitality.info Email - manojkumar297@gmail.com Skype - manojkumar297 Twitter - @digitalhotels, http://twitter.com/digitalhotels LinkedIn - http://fr.linkedin.com/in/manojk2007 Online Resume - http://digitalhospitality.info/online-resume-cv/

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Acknowledgements I would like to thank the Vatel Group and specifically Mr Parag Joshi, Internet marketing manager, for all his assistance in better understanding the essence of social media and digital marketing. I would also like to thank Madam Ferhat Partouche for her assistance and guidance on this project. Lastly I would like to thank Vatel international school, Nimes, France for giving me this opportuni-ty.

I would also like to extend my gratitude to all the participants to my online survey who took out time to give their valuable feedback making this project a success.

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Table of Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................................. i Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................... ii 1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 1 2 Why social Media? .......................................................................................................... 2

2.1 What is social media? .............................................................................................. 2 2.2 Types of social media platforms............................................................................... 2

2.2.1 Social media websites most widely used ............................................................ 3 2.3 State of art (current situation) Social media usage worldwide ................................. 4

2.3.1 Social media statistics - worldwide ..................................................................... 4 2.4 Activity on various social media platforms.............................................................. 5

3 Vacation frequency and spending patterns ....................................................................... 6 3.1 Vacation Patterns ...................................................................................................... 6 3.2 Vacation spending pattern ........................................................................................ 6

4 Vacation Booking Patterns ............................................................................................... 8 4.1 Mode of vacation/holiday booking .......................................................................... 8 4.2 Vacation decision preference.................................................................................... 9

5 Vacation Decision Making influencers .......................................................................... 10 5.1 Destination discovery ............................................................................................. 10 5.2 Social media as an influencer ................................................................................. 10

6 Sustainable Tourism awareness and Decision Making .................................................. 11 6.1 Sustainable tourism Awareness .............................................................................. 11 6.2 Sustainable tourism decision making ..................................................................... 12

7 Research Conclusions .................................................................................................... 13 7.1 Social Media Communication Hexagon (SMC Hexagon) ..................................... 13

7.1.1 Understanding the Social Media Communication Hexagon ............................. 13 7.1.2 Definition of terms in social media communication hexagon .......................... 13 7.1.3 Using the social media hexagon - ..................................................................... 14 7.1.4 Social Media Communication Hexagon ........................................................... 16

8 Digital marketing plan ................................................................................................... 17 8.1 Broad marketing plan ............................................................................................. 17

8.1.1 Digital Marketing vision ................................................................................... 17 8.1.2 Goals ................................................................................................................. 17 8.1.3 Ideal Online follower ........................................................................................ 17 8.1.4 Digital Market Description ............................................................................... 17 8.1.5 Remarkable Difference ..................................................................................... 18 8.1.6 Differentiators ................................................................................................... 18

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8.1.7 Core digital Strategy ......................................................................................... 18 8.1.8 Core Online Elements ....................................................................................... 18 8.1.9 Marketing Materials .......................................................................................... 18 8.1.10 Web Plan Refer Fig 6.a ..................................................................................... 19

9 Recommendations .......................................................................................................... 20 9.1 Developing a Social Media Strategy ...................................................................... 20

9.1.1 Social Media for beginners ............................................................................... 20 9.1.2 Next Steps ......................................................................................................... 20 9.1.3 What to post? .................................................................................................... 21 9.1.4 Tracking Returns ............................................................................................... 21

9.2 Social Media Officer ........................................................................................... 22 9.2.1 Duties and Responsibilities ............................................................................... 22 9.2.2 Skills and Specifications ................................................................................... 23 9.2.3 Education and Qualifications ............................................................................ 23

10 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 24 10.1 Summary ................................................................................................................ 24 10.2 Evaluation .............................................................................................................. 24 10.3 Future Work ........................................................................................................... 24

References ........................................................................................................................... 25 Appendix 1 .......................................................................................................................... 26

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1 Introduction I am Manoj KUMAR and I am a final year master degree student at Vatel International business school. I have 6 years experience in the Hotel and Tourism industry. I have also worked as a hospital-ity consultant.

Due to deep interest my major for the masters degree is marketing and for the same I completed a 6 month internship in the internet marketing department of Vatel group. Vatel groups major SBUs are Vatel hotel schools, Vatel Hotel and Vatel Gourmet. During this said period I worked exclusively to understand the working of social media, digital marketing plan creation, utilization of online tools to improve visibility, achieve competitor intelligence, awareness improvement and successfully plan-ning and running online campaigns.

During the said period I observed and analysed the online activities of many hotel and hospitality organizations. During my research I realised what each company is doing to improve and increase its online reach. But through a cross market analysis I also realised that the hospitality industry was committing far less of its resources in the online marketing arena. The ideas and plans were fairly basic and were far from creating any real benefits.

But there was also a changing trend that I noticed. The industry giants are slowly adapting their online offering and incorporating social media in every part of their outward communication.

For me the most unique and interesting set of hospitality organizations are the sustainable devel-opment organizations. They were comparably smaller in size and were the least active in the social media segment. Somehow they still remain obscured from the glare of the majority of the human pop-ulation. At the same time they are the most spectacular entities with the most enriching vision and mission which truly have objectives which go far beyond revenue generation but pursue real value creation. This value is also unique because it is created for an eco-system which includes its local hu-man population. Sustainable tourism is a unique balancing act between mass tourism, industrialization, economy and at the other end with nature, environment, ecology and local human population. And thus my concentration was to create a viable digital marketing plan for sustainable tourism entities.

To achieve the objectives of this dissertation an international market survey was organised which was administered specifically on social media. The market survey was designed to understand holiday booking patterns, involvement and respectively the effect of social media on decisions made, level of awareness of sustainable tourism development products and finally gauging the level involvement expected by consumers. The survey was analysed to compute the best possible marketing plan/s. The-se said plans were then gauged on their financial potency and effectivity.

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2 Why social Media? This section will help to understand the current global/regional trends and why should companies fo-cus on the social media platform

2.1 What is social media? [1] Social media is media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable communication techniques. Social media is the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into interactive dialogue. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, which allows the creation and exchange of user-generated content." Peter R. Scott and J. Mike Jacka define social media as the set of Web-based broadcast technologies that enable the democratization of content, giving people the ability to emerge from consumers of content to publishers. Businesses may also refer to social media as consumer-generated media (CGM). A common thread running through all definitions of social media is a blending of technology and social interaction for the co-creation of value

2.2 Types of social media platforms Podcasting [3] [A podcast (or non-streamed webcast) is a series of digital media files (either

audio or video) that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication. The word replaced webcast in common use with the success of the iPod and its role in the ris-ing popularity and innovation of web feeds. Blogging - [4] A blog (a blend of the term web log) is a type of website or part of a website.

Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descrip-tions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. Social bookmarking - [5] Social bookmarking is a method for Internet users to organize, store,

manage and search for bookmarks of resources online. Unlike file sharing, the resources themselves aren't shared, merely bookmarks that reference them. Social networking - [6] A social networking service is an online service, platform, or site that

focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people, e.g.,

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who share interests and/or activities. A social network service essentially consists of a repre-sentation of each user (often a profile), his/her social links, and a variety of additional ser-services. Most social network services are web based and provide means for users to interact over the internet, such as e-mail and instant messaging. Online community services are some-times considered as a social network service, though in a broader sense, social network service usually means an individual-centered service whereas online community services are group-centered. Social networking sites allow users to share ideas, activities, events, and in-terests within their individual networks.

2.2.1 Social media websites most widely used www.facebook.com - [7] Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in

February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. As of January 2011, Face-book has more than 600 million active users. Users may create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. Facebook users must register before using the site. Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups, organized by workplace, school or college, or other characteris-tics. www.twitter.com - [9] Twitter is a website, owned and operated by Twitter Inc., which offers

a social networking and microblogging service, enabling its users to send and read messages called tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the user's pro-file page. www.linkedIn.com - [8] LinkedIn is a business-related social networking site. Founded in

December 2002 and launched in May 2003,[3] it is mainly used for professional networking. www.flickr.com - [10] Flickr is an image hosting and video hosting website, web services

suite, and online community. In addition to being a popular website for users to share and embed personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers to host images that they embed in blogs and social media. www.youtube.com [11] YouTube is a video-sharing website on which users can upload,

share and view videos.

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2.3 State of art (current situation) Social media usage worldwide [A] Thus the study was then directed to understanding time spent on Internet

Social media gains importance due to high consumer participation. Through figure 2.3 we can suc-cessfully demonstrate the need to create online marketing plans is far greater today than ever before.

2.3.1 Social media statistics - worldwide Social Media today is the largest co-ordinated communication effort the world has ever seen. The sta-tistics are absolutely stunning.

[2] Twitter has 75m user accounts, but only around 15m are active users on a regular ba-sis. Twitter now officially claims to have 175m registered users, although it's unclear what percentage regularly user the service. Twitter states that 95m tweets are written each day. This is a staggering 250% increase from last year.

LinkedIn has over 50m members worldwide. Officially, LinkedIn has grown 100%, now having over 100m professionals who use the platform worldwide. There are now 20m+ EU LinkedIn mem-bers. More than one million companies have LinkedIn Company Pages (formerly known as company profiles).

Facebook officially hit the half-billion member mark in 2010. There are now some 640m Face-book users worldwide. With a 50% active rate, using the official 500m figure, this means at least 250m users every 24 hours. This is more than a 40% increase in 12 months. More than 30bn pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, etc.) are shared each month, which is an average of 7bn pieces a week. The average Facebook user creates 90 pieces of content each month.

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5

10

15

20

25

30

Less

Than 1

hour

1 to 3

Hours

4 to 5

hours

6 to 8

hours

9 to 12

hours

12 or

more

hours

Time spent on internet

Time on internet

Fig1.b- Marketing implications of social media [2] Fig 1.a Time spent on the internet - 2011 [A]

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Flickr continues to grow at a steady rate, having increased by some 25% in the last twelve months. At the end of 2010, it was hosting more than 5bn images. Flickr members upload more than 3,000 images every minute.

Wikipedia now has more 17m articles. The site now has an army of 91,000 active contributors.

YouTube - More than 24 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute. There are more than 2bn video views on YouTube every 24 hours.

2.4 Activity on various social media platforms In the controlled survey to a global au-

dience the question was to assign peak activity to different social media websites. Score 5 being the highest activity and score 1 being the lowest. As we can see from figure 2.2 the highest activity is seen on Facebook and twitter. What we can also see is the blogging has medium activ-ity. Thus we can successfully state that the 2 most important avenues to market products would be

Facebook Twitter

[A] Time spent on Facebook and twitter To further understand the consumer activity

patterns the study was also directed to understand the amount of time being spent upon the 2 major social media websites. In figure 1.d we see 2 peaks clearly showing 2 types of users. The twitter spent more time due to the ease of use and at the same more qualitative time is spent by Facebook users. The implications of this data would be in deter-mining the frequency of communication on the various networks. Which we would see in section 2.5

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

5

4

3

2

1

Fig 1.c Peak activity on social media websites [A]

05

101520253035

Time spent on

Facebook

Time spent on

Twitter

Fig 1.d Time spent on Facebook and Twitter [A]

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3 Vacation frequency and spending patterns In this section the consumer survey asked the participants about holiday patterns, booking patterns and spending patterns for their annual vacations.

3.1 Vacation Patterns

On the global scale the 65% of participants claimed that they took at-least 2 vacations a year. The survey also asked the no. of international vacations taken. The same 65% which took 2 vacations year took at-least one international vacation a year.

3.2 Vacation spending pattern

18%

65%

14% 3%

Total Number of

vacations

Once a year

Twice a year

Thrice or more

a year

65% 8%

3%

24%

International vacations

Once a year

Twice a year

Thrice or more

a year

Once in 2 years

14%

28%

52%

6%

Global Spending per person for a vacation

500 $ or less

501$ to 1000$

1001$ to 2000$

2001$ or more

Fig 2.a Annual vacation frequency [A] Fig 2.b International vacation frequency [A]

Fig 2.c Vacation spending per person globally [A]

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In fig 2.c it can be seen that globally a single vacation per person budget is about 1000$ to 2000$. When a region-wise split is made the trend continues with only exception being India. We could very well call this the mass tourist/traveller segment. Frequency and spending patterns are an important step in understanding consumer psyche. Further on this data will be used in determining communication frequency and marketing budgeting.

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

USA Australia Belgium Canada China France India

Region-wise Vacation Spending

500 $ or less

501$ to 1000$

1001$ to 2000$

2001$ or more

Fig 2.d Region-wise vacation spending [A]

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4 Vacation Booking Patterns 4.1 Mode of vacation/holiday booking The survey asked how people preferred to book their holidays. Through fig 3.a, 3.b and 3.c we can see that travellers are seeking freedom to make choices. The reliance on the mass tourism has considera-bly waned for the social media active population. This considerably reinforces the need to create an online marketing plan.

82% of the global audience preferred to book and design their own holidays. 13% preferred to design their own vaca-tions via a Tour operator. And very small percentage still preferred the tour opera-tor.

Fig 3.b reflects the booking medium preferred by travellers for booking travel tickets. 44% preferred online travel agents OTM. 48% preferred to book directly via travel company website. Booking via travel agents is clearly out of trend.

5%

13%

82%

Holiday Planning

Tour Operator

Self Designed Via

Tour operator

Completely Self

Designed

Online

Travel

Agents like

Expedia,

Liligo etc.

44%

Airline/Train

website eg

SNCF, British

arlines etc.

48%

Local

Travel

Agent

8%

Travel reservations

Fig 3.a Holiday planning channel preference [A]

Fig 3.b Travel ticket booking medium preference [A]

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In fig 3.c it is again noticed that travel agents are clearly out of vogue. 45% pre-ferred to book via Online Travel Agents. 49% preferred to book directly via Hotel websites.

4.2 Vacation decision prefer-ence

In the survey respondents were also asked what made them choose a specific destination. As we can see in Fig 3.d the destination itself forms the most im-portant pull for the selection. The price paid is at second position. While the hotel, its services and local culture are closely tied.

These observations present a unique understanding for promoting the hotel. This will definitely help in formulating which medium to focus upon to get the best results.

Online

Travel

Agents like

booking.co

m etc

45%

Hotel

Websites

49%

Local

Travel

Agent

6%

Hotel Reservation

Fig 3.c Hotel booking medium preference [A]

010

2030

4050

6070

80

Vacation Decsion reason

1 2 3 4

Fig 3.d Vacation booking preference [A]

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5 Vacation Decision Making influencers 5.1 Destination discovery The respondents were also asked how they discovered new destinations for their next vacation.

60% responded saying that the pri-mary source for information was Web 2.0 which includes all social media web-sites, online conversations, online news articles, videos, forums, online travel magazines etc.

25% responded to word of mouth. 10 % responded to travel magazines

(print medium) and a meagre 3% for Television advertisements and newspa-per articles.

5.2 Social media as an influencer

When asked how much importance do friends and family status updates, pic-ture, videos from their vacation has on their own decision to choose a vaca-tion destination, twitter ranked the highest with maximum audience as-signing the highest score. Facebook followed a close second. Respondents were asked rate as im-portance of updates, 1 being the lowest influencer and 5 being the highest.

0

10

20

30

401

2

34

5

Relative importance to vacation

destination decision making

Facebook

Twitter

60%

10% 3% 3%

25%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

Discover new or next vacation destination

Fig 4.a Destination Discovery medium [A]

Fig 4.b social media as an influencer [A]

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6 Sustainable Tourism awareness and Decision Making 6.1 Sustainable tourism Awareness To start of the respondents were asked if they have ever been to a sustainable tourism desti-nation. 17% replied yes. They were then subjected to further questions to understand how and why they choose sustainable tourism vacation.

A series of options were then given to the respondents to understand their awareness of what sus-tainable tourism stands for, definition. These questions were based to all the respondents.

27% understood that it was better for the environment. 22%thought it improved the local economy. 4% answered dont know and adventurous vacation.

Yes

17%

No

83%

sustainable tourism

destination experience

22%

15% 13%

4%

27%

15%

4%

Improved local

economy of the

destination

Local producers

will have a

market to sell to

Better education

and social

benefits to the

locals

Don't know/

Can't say

Better for the

environment

A cheap

vacation

Adventurous

vacation to

dangerous

locations (not

for the faint

hearted)

Sustainable tourism definition awareness

Fig 5.a sustainable tourism Firsthand experience [A]

Fig 5.b sustainable tourism definition awareness [A]

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6.2 Sustainable tourism decision making

For the 17% who had experienced sus-tainable tourism first-hand were then asked how did they find out about the ho-tel/destination.

35% responded word of mouth. 17% responded travel magazine. While 9% said facebook/twitter. And only 4% said blogs.

Through the survey the respondents were also medium of preference to be contacted and for circulation of market-ing materials.

9%

9%

35%

9%

17%

9%

4%

9%

Google search

Tour operator website

Word of mouth

Faeook / twitter or other weTravel Magazine

Newspaper article

Blogs

Others

Medium used to find out about

the destination

Fig 5.c sustainable tourism definition awareness [A]

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%120%

Email

Facebook

News/Social

Bookmarking

Twitter

Other Social Media

Blog

Suggested Contact Plan

1

2

3

4

5

Fig 5.d sustainable tourism suggested contact Medium [A]

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7 Research Conclusions 7.1 Social Media Communication Hexagon (SMC Hexagon) The Social Media Communication Hexagon is strategy tool which will assist Digital marketers to have insight into creating effective digital marketing plans.

7.1.1 Understanding the Social Media Communication Hexagon Some of the questions answered by the SMC hexagon are

What content to communicate How much to communicate

Through what medium to communicate How to create a balanced Push and Pull strategy.

7.1.2 Definition of terms in social media communication hexagon X axis Frequency of communication No of times the entity decides to communicate with its

customers Y axis Type of Communication (Fig 4.a, 5.c, 5.d) o Static Traditional forms of communication. Generally one way communication o Social Social media based communication. 2 way communication Elements of the hexagon The elements were derived from fig 3.d. A weighted average was de-

termined the relative importance to consumers of each of the element. o Destination and environment About the destination where the entity is based and envi-

ronmental aspects of the entity. o Local Culture and community About the local community and its culture. The commu-

nication could also include local handicrafts which could be sold online. o Prices and offers Various offers and packages that the hotel holds o Hotel and services About the hotel and the various services provided by the hotel. Also

can include activities like nature walks, wind surfing, sightseeing etc. o Local cuisine About local flavours and food. For eg. How the hotel is fusing or show-

casing the local flavours to create unique signature food. o Consumers and Users Consumers and user comments. Post stay comments and recom-

mendations. User generated videos and articles. Elements of the matrix o Involving High Frequency, High use of social media.

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o Interacting Low Frequency, High use of social media o Informing Low Frequency, High use static channels o Selling High Frequency, High use of static channels Quadrant Classification o Involving and interacting These quadrants create the awareness and act more like a pull

strategy. o Informing and selling - These quadrants create the marketing effect and act more like a

push strategy.

7.1.3 Using the social media hexagon -

The marketing department of the hotel should try to first analyse their current marketing and communication plans on the hexagon elements. Identify areas where they are lacking and then adapt-ing their plan as per the SMC Hexagon.

The SMC hexagon is marketing strategy tool and will provide a road map to be successful in achieving digital marketing objectives.

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7.1.4 Social Media Communication Hexagon

Consumers and users

Local Culture and community

Destination and environment

Marketing efforts

Local Cuisine

Hotel and Services Price and offers

Awareness efforts

Involving Interacting

Informing Selling

Frequency of Communication High Low

Static

Social

Communication Type

Facebook Twitter

Trip advisor Social Bookmarking

YouTube/ Flickr

Blogs/ Email Websites/ Write-ups

Wikipedia News/Articles

YouTube/ Flickr

Pull Strategy

Push Strategy

Fig 6.a Social Media Communication Hexagon

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8 Digital marketing plan 8.1 Broad marketing plan Assumptions The following marketing plan has been done for 100 room property which is both sus-tainable and responsible.

8.1.1 Digital Marketing vision Create and manage online entities which will be the face of the entity, the said online entity will

speak of the core values of the property, create awareness and carry out a 2 way communication with customers, enthusiasts, government/non-government organization, experts, other online entities and general populous.

8.1.2 Goals

8.1.2.1 Business Goals: Achieve a 20% from online activities Exceed 1000 leads 8.1.2.2 Tactical Goals: Achieve monthly growth of 20% follower/likes on Facebook an twitter Create 30 unique posts each month which will be of value to the online community. 8.1.3 Ideal Online follower

Enthusiastically follows the blogs, updates, videos and other updates by the hotel. Will readily share and retweet to his/her follower. Will recommend the hotel and its services Will actively participate in all online activity Will assist in building online community Will help in creating sales conversions

8.1.4 Digital Market Description Highly competitive environment with almost every major hotel/chain fighting for an

online market share. Highly volatile market with a120% annual growth. Extremely effective to capture a global audience and create effective online community.

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8.1.5 Remarkable Difference As being a sustainable tourism Hotel there is great and unique difference between us and the regu-

lar hotel industry. Our hotels have a unique set of values and we are proud to be a responsible entity. We are responsible for the local ecology and local community. We create sustenance for the local population with the help of jobs and education. We aim to improve the lives of the future generation without destroying the local environment. In many ways we are the future.

8.1.6 Differentiators Case to case Basis. Needs to be identified. Key heads Hotel Services Destination Local culture Local community Destination Environment Sustainable practices

8.1.7 Core digital Strategy To create awareness on a global scale, specifically in source markets. Constantly communicate

with potential, current and past customers. Create strong and very active online communities. Drive online impressions to actual sales. Use social media to understand changing consumer needs and wants. Adapt to changing needs and wants.

Refer to Fig 6.a

8.1.8 Core Online Elements Non-static webpage Facebook page Flickr stream Youtube channel Twitter Employ digital story-tellers to write blogs Feature blog on hotel website

8.1.9 Marketing Materials Website

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Email newsletters Direct mail - postcards and letters Facebook ads Google adwords Digital story-tellers Marketing kit for corporate business development 8.1.10 Web Plan Refer Fig 6.a

Create a SEO optimised website which will be non-static. Social connect options on the website Hotel Blog to be hosted via hotel website Feature guest reviews and comments (text and videos) Communicate via website about community involvement Communicate via website environmental involvement Booking related plan Feature hotel on all major OTMs Feature booking via website

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9 Recommendations 9.1 Developing a Social Media Strategy 9.1.1 Social Media for beginners

These strategies would work well for hotels who currently do not have a social media strategy and want to dabble in social media without a significant investment. The main social media objectives for such hotels can include: User Generated Content Channels -- Trip Advisor. If Trip Advisor is not your most effec-

tive channel, then determine your most influential channels (where you get a lot of guests from) Facebook Profile. Twitter profile YouTube video channels Flickr photo profile Blog

Hotel can set up each of these channels on their own without any external help or alternatively, they can use an outside agency or a consultant. Either way, here are a few items to keep in mind while setting up the channels: Channels should be tagged with appropriate keywords Link the channels back to your hotel website and vice-versa Interlink the channels so that the hotel gains from cross-fertilization between the channels.

There are apps and plug-ins available that can be used to interlink the channels. The bene-fit of interlinking is that a "new special offering" post on your blog automatically shows up on Facebook and Twitter. Any pictures posted on Flickr automatically show up on your Facebook account

9.1.2 Next Steps The key to social media optimization is that you have to be actively involved in these channels. Of

course, actively could range from allocating a full-time resource (Social Media Officer Refer to 9.2) to the initiative as several of the upscale hotels and brand s are doing to manage the channels on a weekly basis.

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9.1.3 What to post? Refer to Fig 6.a

9.1.4 Tracking Returns There are 2 different levels at which one can measure the success of your social media optimiza-

tion strategies: Measuring Social Media Buzz Measuring Returns -- evaluating website leads and revenue generated Although both the items above are related, there are different mechanisms for measuring the 2

goals.

9.1.4.1 Tracking Social Media Buzz There are several tools available in the market. These tools tell you what people are saying about

you on different channels, video views, photo-views, etc. and benchmark your performance month over month to determine whether the social media strategies are being effective or not. For example, you can track the number of video views month over month or track your Facebook fans month over month and determine that the social media strategies are effective in generating a buzz about your ho-tel. An added advantage of such tools is that it offers a single interface for all your social media monitoring.

9.1.4.2 Tracking ROI The return on investment from social media channels is harder to track vs. the buzz created by the

channels. The reason for this is because the conversion from Social Media Marketing efforts occurs on channels different from the social media channels -- for example, either a client will book on a ho-tel website or on the phone even though they found the hotel on Facebook or on Twitter. The best mechanism to track conversion from social media channels is to measure the leads (website traffic) generated from the social media channels. This can easily be done using simple website analytics tools. In addition, you can determine how many visitors from the social media channels went into your booking engine. Using your conversion ratios, you can get a very good estimate of the ROI from your social media channels.

A secondary measure of the ROI and effectiveness of your social media strategies is to look at the impact of social media optimization on your search engine results. For example, when you type your hotel's name on the search engines, you will find that after the first couple of listings which should be your hotel website, the search engine page shows results from various 3rd party affiliate sites. With aggressive social media optimization, you should see that universal search results will help your ho-

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tel's social media channels dominate the search results pages. That ensures that all the leads come di-rectly to you and is also an indicator that your overall search engine recognition is increasing.

Although, the techniques above are less objective than measuring conversions from paid search advertising or banner advertising, above mechanisms do give the hotels a fairly good idea of the re-turns and effectiveness of the social media campaigns. As the technology advances happen, we are positive that there will be ways to measure social media effectiveness more accurately. The big ques-tion for us as hoteliers is whether we wait until then, when several of our competitors are ahead of the curve or do we invest today in the media that is bound to be the future of internet marketing.

9.2 Social Media Officer It is always a good idea to train a social media officer who can constantly monitor and materialize the digital marketing plans of the hotel. Social media is not a very technical arena. Social media was cre-ated was for the general population. An enthusiastic and motivated could be trained for 6 months to carry out effectively the responsibilities and duties mentioned in the sample Job Description. This is a tested fact as I myself went through a six month internship to achieve the desired level in social media and digital marketing.

9.2.1 Duties and Responsibilities

The social media officer is responsible for developing and executing a clearly defined social me-dia strategy and has to report to the marketing head of the company The marketing strategy should comply with the marketing and customer support initiatives of the company He should make sure the strategies increase brand equity and awareness He must evaluate, plan, organise, manage and contribute to social media channels to reach the company targets and objectives He must ensure that a consistent marketing message is delivered to the market and the companys position is strengthened He must analyse existing and potential media activities He should be able to identify and interpret social media trends He should conduct, gather and analyse market research to find out the business opportunities He must plan, manage and implement all social media activities He must work in collaboration with other marketing organisations and develop unique marketing strategies and partnerships

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9.2.2 Skills and Specifications

A social media manager needs to have good communications and writing skills He must have strong analytical, forecasting and research skills He should be able to multi task and meet targets Experience in online marketing, advertising and public relations is also helpful He should have good networking, leadership and negotiation skills

9.2.3 Education and Qualifications

In order to be a social media manager, one needs to have graduate degree in any field preferably in

hotel management. He should be proficient in the computer programmes and software required in this

field.

A company sponsored 6 months training will able him to carry out his duties and responsibilities ef-

fectively

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10 Conclusion 10.1 Summary Social media for sustainable tourism was conducted purely on social media platforms. A consumer survey was done to understand key aspects of consumer awareness and consumer psyche towards sus-tainable tourism development. The study was then used to make the Social Media Communication Hexagon and broad recommendations.

10.2 Evaluation The dissertations objectives were

1. To understand consumer point of view towards sustainable tourism entities 2. Create an internet based marketing plan Aiming at Increasing consumer awareness and recog-

nition worldwide 3. Create a consumer facing online entity 4. Build loyal communities which will support efforts in difficult times 5. Improve sales

I managed to achieve partial success. Objective 1, 2 and 3 were achieved via the Social Media Communication Hexagon. The SMC Hexagon Fig 6.a is a culmination of the research done and my own inputs. When put into practice it will assist in forming a strong and viable roadmap to achieving objectives 4 and 5.

10.3 Future Work To completely achieve success in the mentioned objectives the SMC Hexagon needs to be adopted by the industry. With continued testing and larger surveys the SMC hexagon will naturally evolve to a much broader entity appealing to all segments of the hospitality industry.

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References [1] Wikipedia page on social media, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media#cite_note-13 [2] Worldwide statistics regarding social media growth and usage -

http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/7334-social-media-statistics-one-year-later [3] Wikipedia page on podcast http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast [4] Wikipedia page on Blog http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog [5] Wikipedia page on Social Bookmarking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_bookmarking [6] Wikipedia page on Social Networking service

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_networking_service [7] Wikipedia page on Facebook http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook [8] Wikipedia page on LinkedIn http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linkedin [9] Wikipedia page on Twitter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter [10] Wikipedia page on Flickr http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flickr [11] Wikipedia page on YouTube http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youtube

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Appendix 1 [A] http://digitalhospitality.info/surveys/