HOTEL BUSINESS REVIEW
JUNE FOCUS: Hotel Sales & Marketing

Five Tips to Manage Your Brand's Volume in Real-Time Environments

By Bruce Seigel General Manager, The Ritz-Carlton, Lake Tahoe | June 2015

Digital consumer engagement is an important part of building brand equity. By using a five-point digital marketing reference system, a hotel can successfully evaluate and manage its digital customer engagement activity to ensure it supports and reflects the brand’s core properties. As the credits rolled across my television screen following a recent episode of Mad Men, I found myself nostalgic for more than just cufflinks and cocktails. For all its romantic ideology of the ad man, I think the show’s true appeal for me is watching how simple it was to build a brand without the Internet’s influence. The show reminds us marketers of the foundations of brand building. I don’t believe there’s a conference in America today that doesn’t include a breakout session on Internet branding. It’s hot and trending. In fact, I read articles generated by a multitude of digital brand directors and experts en mass each day. We all do. Yet by way of wireless assimilation, I think many companies willfully drink the Kool-Aid and add “digital brand management” to their marketing department’s core responsibilities without a clear outlook on the brand’s real-world performance. This thought brings me back to Mad Men and the character of Roger Sterling. As the senior ad man, he lacks the compulsive behaviors we see in the show’s younger characters. While admittedly inebriated much of the time, he remains mature and deliberate, void of the adolescent impatience of his underlings. He is notorious by reputation, yet surprisingly adept and relevant to the story throughout all seven seasons. It might be said that Roger Sterling – through the creative and careful invention of the character by the show’s writers – is a successful brand within a successful brand. This is an important, and often overlooked, characteristic of every brand because a business’ brand does not exist as a single entity but is in fact, a brand within a sea of human brands. For Roger, this meant face-to-face interactions with clients. Customers, through their interactions with a business, its employees, its products, and other customers, have more gravitational influence on the brand than an army of brand managers. But today this influence is compounded with the presence and necessity of customer engagement on the Internet. **Dialing Down the Digital Noise** At any time on any given day of the week and from anywhere in the world you can login to your business’ social media accounts and analyze real time customer interactions. We’ve come along way since focus groups and Nielson ratings. But if a brand management team does not establish realistic benchmarks and clearly defined engagement objectives, then this data is not doing your brand any favors and is most likely adding more noise to an already loud environment. There are literally thousands of direct digital engagement solutions on the market today for hotels including company websites, proprietary mobile applications (apps), lobby kiosks, in-suite interface systems, and email newsletters. And there are as many, if not more, indirect digital engagement solutions like travel booking and review websites and social media environments. One thing all these digital instruments have in common is content. And let’s face it: content is the food of the Internet machine. Your brand’s digital footprint is making strides in places you’ve probably never heard of because online content never disappears. This shouldn’t be a surprise since most of the Internet is made up of robots that simply aggregate content and spit it out to willing hosts. For this reason, the content may become compromised and exposed. This is why you need to practice the art of dialing up and dialing down the volume of your brand’s online presence through digital content management. **Five Noise Modulating Tips** Here are five simple talking points to discuss with your digital brand management team that may help control and direct your brand’s volume in real-time virtual environments: **1. Focus on Reality** The hospitality industry is a people-first environment that should be staffed with people persons. For this reason, your employees should be empowered with the ability to respond to real time guest situations so they don’t fall victim to missed opportunities to be hospitable. Most guests won’t post a picture or a review unless it reflects a significant moment In Real Life (IRL). Monitor those real-life moments being shared online and be willing to respond if a response or action will enhance the guest’s experience. Sometimes a simple “Like” of a guest’s comment is adequate interaction. The IRL moments of today and tomorrow are what matter to your guests. If you receive a poor review, thank the person for the real and honest feedback and include in your response how and when the issue will be corrected. Potential and future guests reading these reviews will also see your response and naturally dismiss the original complaint as old news. **2. Respect Privacy** Depending on where your guest is sharing their IRL experience online will determine your digital brand management team’s response. If the engagement is taking place on your brand’s social media page, then it is appropriate for your team to continue the conversation. But set limits. And don’t be reluctant to request an online conversation continue offline. Remember, guests do not travel to your property to visit and relax with the staff. Likewise, the motivation for their online posts about IRL experiences on your property is more about them than you. Similar to how you treat them while visiting your property, guests also expect little interference and the same level of privacy online. However, if the guest is posting a review on a third-party website or on their personal account page, then you should definitely monitor the activity but refrain from hasty responses. This is especially true when the content is negative. Unless an employee or your property is being accused of untrue or unsubstantiated negligent or illegal behavior, then a response is unnecessary. Engaging in arguments online never produce a winner. **3. Adopt a Voice** Many brands are opting to use humor in advertising. While effective on screen or radio, you should refrain from using humor while engaging with guests online for fear it may be misinterpreted. Another mistake many digital brand departments make is adding noise by over posting. Just because it’s Arbor Day doesn’t mean you have to acknowledge it with a special post or comment on every message board – unless your resort is located near a national forest. Your digital voice should be heard and recognized, but never be louder than your brand. Understand that each social site has an underlying tone and attitude. What’s appropriate on LinkedIn may be too stiff on Instagram. You may want to consider adopting different personas (or voices) for each social media site to match the audience. For example, if you post a photo of one of your hotel’s plush beds with a message “Sleep L8!” remember that urban acronyms aren’t typically understood by Baby Boomers. **4. Be Loud Locally** Many travel destinations have great social media sites that keep the digital noise local. Whether hosted by a local Chamber of Commerce, tourism bureau or an ambitious realtor, these sites rely on local current content and appreciate the addition of your activity for free. Additionally, most local news outlets will promote your news and events and encourage reader dialog through their robust news websites. Your competition’s guests are looking for things to do in the area. Turn up your brand’s volume on these local sites. With that said, be sure you have adequate bandwidth as a major factor in guest enjoyment is reliable Internet access. Whether you charge for it or provide it for free, your property will probably need to add bandwidth each year. Think of it: a family of four may bring up to 3 personal digital devices each that requires wireless access to operate. Add this to the 300 executives meeting in your conference room, an existing POS system, and all the other operational equipment that requires bandwidth, and you might see more noise from complaints if you can’t support the activity. In cases of expected high volume, be sure your team knows how and when to purchase additional bandwidth to anticipate the influx of activity. For a more intimate experience, consider developing a proprietary mobile application. A few years ago, the Ritz Carlton launched a proprietary app to better engage with guests during their stay. The app allows guests to not only make reservations and check out a daily calendar, but also to message the concierge and order food items poolside. **5. Track the Noise** One bad review will not close your doors, but consistently poor reviews are undeniably a sign of concern. Instead of getting on the defensive, you should instruct your digital brand management team to prepare weekly reports so the issues can be resolved by the correct department. Tracking the noise also means tracing trends. Most popular social sites have a wealth of activity metrics so you can gain a better understanding of where activity peaks and falls short. This will provide valuable insight into the tool’s ability to assist in increasing engagement and revenue. **Learn to Love a Little Noise** When engaging guests on social media, your brand management team should accentuate the positive by distributing content that reflects and supports brand objectives. The wealth of emerging digital data for guest engagement is limitless. Therefore, it’s important to evaluate each social media tool and analyze its efficacy with relation to your overall marketing campaign. But no matter how many professional photos of your property you post on a social media profile or how much money you spend on Internet marketing, if your guest experience is poor IRL, your brand is at risk. Focus on encouraging your staff to forecast guest needs and create better-than-expected IRL moments. Any moment that can be positively shaped by staff engagement through digital interactions is a noise-control opportunity. Remember, how your staff engages with guests IRL will always be the most seminal digital brand influencer. Tracking consumer-generated online content is a great way to identify short- and long-term marketing campaigns that add value through engagement and revenue through conversions. It also helps you develop distribution point markers so you know which sites require your attention and when to change it. Digital noise is a good thing and with the above tips and talking points, you may even learn to love it.

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Hotel Newswire is a newswire service that distributes press releases on behalf of our users. If you decide to submit a press release for distribution through our system we will transmit your entire press release including any personal information therein contained to our media contacts and online distribution points including search engines. This is the only redistribution of your information that we engage in. Your submission of press releases through our system indicates consent with this policy. The information we collect during your registration process is used to notify users about updates to our service and inform users of any special events hosted by Hotel Newswire. This information is not shared with other organizations for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

Cookies: Our system requires the use of cookies to enable the user to log back into our website to access information from the newswire, without having to log in each time using the required username and password.

If you do not want to receive email from us in the future, please let us know by following instructions included in our communication with you. Users who supply us with telephone numbers online may receive telephone contact from us regarding their account, or informing them of new products and services available on the HotelExecutive website. If you do not wish to receive such telephone calls, please edit your account and remove your phone number from your account profile. This can be done from your user account menu.

Ad Servers: We do not partner with or have any relationship with any ad server companies. From time to time, we may use customer information for new uses not previously disclosed in our privacy notice. If our information practices change at any time, we will post the policy changes to our website to notify you of these changes and provide you with the ability to opt out of these new uses. If you are concerned about how your information is used, you should check back at our website periodically.

Upon request we provide site visitors with access to all information (including proprietary information) that we maintain about them. Users can access this information by logging in to their account.

Security: We always use industry-standard encryption technologies while transferring and receiving user data exchanged with our site. We have appropriate security measures in place in our physical facilities to protect against the loss, misuse, or alteration of information that we have collected from you on our site. We do not store credit card information in our systems.

If you feel that this site is not following its stated information policy, you may contact us.

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Brains Behind the Bots: Field Notes from the AI Underground

By Tim Hentschel, Co-Founder & CEO, HotelPlanner

In March 2024, visionary leader Elon Musk opened another artificial intelligence startup, xAI, as an open-source challenge to ChatGPT, which is owned by OpenAI. Then IBM announced it was slashing its staff size in its increasing adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. On the same day, the European Union’s parliament endorsed the world’s inaugural comprehensive regulatory framework for managing AI at the forefront of technological investment. The EU AI Act, enacted in 2021, categorizes AI technologies based on risk levels, from "unacceptable" to low hazard, with enforcement slated by the end of May this year pending final checks and...

Rethinking Hospitality Marketing Team Deployment to Optimize Success

By Patricia Davis, Senior Vice President, Marketing & Communications, Davidson Hospitality Group

It should go without saying that cross-functional collaboration is essential for success in hospitality. The same is true for marketing in the hospitality space. Developing effective marketing strategies that attract and retain guests, drive the topline and boost team member recruitment and retention takes a village, to borrow a phrase. Evolving technology and shifting consumer preferences, along with an incredibly crowded marketplace, present complex challenges for the hospitality marketer to overcome. To stay ahead, marketing teams must be agile, data-informed, and guest-centric. Prioritize High Impact ActivitiesWe all know that hospitality is a 24 hour-a-day, 365 day-a-year...

Flexi-Hospitality - Another Evolution of the Industry

By Wendy Hansen, Counsel, Eversheds Sutherland

Like most industries, the hotel industry has cycles (seasonal demand and economic upturns and downturns) and trends (personalization, sustainability, health and wellness, etc.), but, from time to time there are key events or technologies that transform a trend into a significant evolution. The trend toward experiential travel was well underway before the Covid-19 pandemic and was facilitated by improvements in technology. Short-term rental platforms, in particular, made it easy for both the guest and the rental provider to search, book, and manage apartments and homes for stays. Indeed, the popularity of the short-term rental platforms was increasing exponentially as...

Leveraging Creativity and Grit to Reveal Existing Hotels' Hidden Potential

By Paul McElroy, Executive VP of Design & Construction, Highgate

If you walked into the Pearl Hotel in Waikīkī in 2019, you’d see a fairly typical mid-century hotel with questionable architecture, lacking amenities and in need of major upgrades throughout. But that’s not what my team and I saw. We saw an underutilized asset in an ideal location with the potential to become a truly special, high-design oasis. That vision became what is today Romer House Waikīkī-a completely reconfigured space complete with an elevated pool oasis and an expansive lobby restaurant. It takes a unique (and rare) combination of creative vision, technical know-how, appetite for risk and buckle-down grit...

By Tracy Ford, Vice President Member Services, Wireless Infrastructure Association

We are a mobile-first society. So much so that when people are getting ready to book travel, they turn to their smartphone to find airline flights and hotel reservations, compare prices and check availability. Flights are booked and hotel reservations made through apps. Once travelers have landed at the airport, transportation to their destination is ordered via a mobile app. Upon arrival at the hotel, they might use their phones to check in, make dinner reservations and order cleaning services. Upon departure, they may use their app to ensure that their loyalty program points were successfully updated, the...

Beyond Branding: Designing Hotels That Tell Their Own Story

By Kristina Lara, Interior Designer, Baskervill

At its heart, hotel design is about transforming a brand’s promise into a tangible experience. In 2025, with travelers increasingly prioritizing authenticity and personalization, big hospitality brands are under pressure to do more than offer a comfortable bed—they must offer an immersive experience. As Forbes underscores in their new article entitled ‘Design and Travel Shifts That Will Define 2025,’ guests now expect hotels to reflect the history, culture, and identity of their locations, not just the brand they represent. For brands to meet this demand, collaboration with designers is essential. It’s not just about telling a brand’s story; it’s about...

Curated Olfactory Environments for Hotels

By Lawrence Adams, Principal, Lawrence Adams Architect

As hotel companies strive to promote bespoke identities for their distinctive collection of brands, they look to carefully craft the guests’ experience through exceptional architecture, interior design and other means of engaging the travelers’ senses to make the lodging experience uniquely pleasant and memorable. Curating a distinctive olfactory experience has become an important component of the sensory ensemble for luxury hotels in formulating a lasting impression. Use of aromas in hospitality environments can be traced back to the use of incense in ancient caravansaries when fragrant resins such as frankincense and myrrh were used to mask unpleasant odors...

HOTEL BUSINESS REVIEW JUNE FOCUS: Hotel Sales & Marketing

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By Bruce Seigel General Manager, The Ritz-Carlton, Lake Tahoe | June 2015

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HOTEL BUSINESS REVIEW
JUNE FOCUS: Hotel Sales & Marketing