Luxury Hotels & Resorts: How to make it to paradise with Social Media?
This week, I won’t talk to you about wine or champagne as I used to, but about hotels. Why this transition? I spent last week-end in Chicago, and even if I could make a blog post about all the fancy cocktails we had on the rooftop terraces, I was more amazed by the number of incredible hotels overhanging this lovely city. Our student hostel -no matter how hipster and cozy it was- could not compete with the surrounding luxury hotels -which were no less than the Waldorf Astoria and the Trump Tower. Needless to say, they are both 5-stars hotels (you can have a look at the Trump Deluxe Suite in your left).
What is very interesting with luxury hotels & resorts is that they offer a real luxurious experience (suites over comfort, spas and other well-being utilities, anytime available personnel, beautiful places and views…) that remains relatively affordable. Indeed, with a few hundreds of dollars you can benefit from all these services, which places hotels & resorts in a kind of reachable luxury. It is not an entry-level luxury sector such as perfumes or cosmetics, but it is a more accessible luxury than haute couture, or high-end jewels and cars. However, luxury hotels & resorts keep an image of prestige, exclusiveness, and sometimes, in an old-fashioned way, of bourgeoisie sole property.
The focus of this post is to evaluate where the luxury hotels & resorts are in customers’ mind in terms of brand perception and engagement. For this purpose, I’ve selected three luxury hotel chains: Ritz-Carlton -which belongs to Marriott International-, Fairmont Hotels&Resorts -which belongs to the Kingdom Holding Company-, and St Regis Hotels&Resorts -which belongs to Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide-.
First of all, let’s take a look at the analysis of the social media of these three companies (see table attached). Absolutely, Ritz-Carlton is way ahead of the two other ones for every social media audience analyzed; nonetheless, relatively, Ritz-Carlton trails behind the others with the poorest audience engagement score. This trend can be explained whether by the purchase of virtual audience -then impossibly engaged- or by a non-engaging worldwide fame. I would prioritize the second option, which is supported by the huge share of voice from Ritz-Carlton.
For the three companies, the most important audience is on Facebook, whereas the most important engagement is on Instagram. Thus, an easy enhancement would be posting more engaging content on Facebook, or trying to reach more followers on Instagram. On a case-by-case basis, if we don’t take into account the Twitter scores which are too low to be significant, Ritz-Carlton should improve its general audience engagement, meanwhile Fairmont -the least known of the three according to google returns- should focus on Instagram engagement, and St Regis -which has the best engaged so loyal audience- should reach more audience.
If we finally hang about the Instagram content of the three companies (shown above), there is a very interesting trend we can notice. Ritz-Carlton more focuses on the decor and landscapes offered by its places; Fairmont more focuses on the lifestyle provided by its places (meals, cocktails, activities such as golf…); and eventually St Regis more focuses on its customers and their experiences (tourism, wedding, holidays with children…).
To conclude, we have to stress that a better audience doesn’t necessarily lead to a better engagement. St Regis was a good example: it is for sure less known than Ritz-Carlton but it manages a better customers’ engagement, notably by bringing their experiences into the stage. And when it comes to luxury hotels and resorts, experiences are definitely the most important thing. Luxury hotels & resorts still have to overcome their old “Etiquette” and their frozen image: it is no more about selling dreams, but making their customers live their dreams. And, from this perspective, social media are the first step to seventh heaven…
Delphine Labati
This post was created as part of the Global Luxury Management Program at the NC State Poole School of Management. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
