What do hotel guests talk about on social media?
Rooms? Spa? Restaurants? Service?
You can probably guess the answer just by looking at your own posts. Some may say I’m biased but take a look at this survey (source: localmeasure.com) that I recently found in my archives. It compiles information from Facebook, Twitter and Instagram from guests staying at close to 300 hotels in North America, Australia and Asia over a two-month period.
According to the survey, the top five hotel experiences that guests talk about on social media are:
- Restaurant and meals: 11,700 posts
- Bar and drinks: 6,400 posts
- Views: 4,000 posts
- Hotel room: 3,000 posts
- Pool: 2,800 posts
With the current travel restrictions, the study may appear slightly outdated, but it does confirm a couple of points to reflect on:
F&B generates the highest feedback on social media. F&B also supports the main communication outreach of a hotel, it is the backbone when it comes to content, news or images and, importantly, it is updated in real time during a guest’s stay.
F&B - by default — always delivers the most accurate and up-to-date information about a hotel’s offer and activities. Unlike rooms or spa, F&B does benefit from the seasonality of the products: the latest vintage, a new cocktail list or menu, an innovative service ritual, the arrival of a new colleague, a seasonal animation from a Swiss chalet in winter to a BBQ in the summer. In addition, these news-generating initiatives or offers mostly require far less investment than refurbishing an entire room or building a new swimming pool!
The stats should encourage our hotels to invest dedicated money for F&B social media; not necessarily a simple budget allocation based on a “profitability breakdown” between rooms and F&B. On top of user-generated content, investing in your own social media channels is logical as it requires you to be clear about your own purpose and message(s); to develop a real style and philosophy when using pictures (an entire post on that one soon); to consider dedicated channels of communications (potentially also different ones from the general hotel channels); to create appealing copy; and to encourage the F&B team to develop initiatives and news for social media.
Stéphane Bellon, founder, Studionomie, Geneva
(main image by Getty images)
|
|
