2011 - Investigation of Social Media Marketing - How Does The Hotel Industry in Hong Kong Perform in Marketing On Social Media Websites

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Investigation of Social Media Marketing: How Does the

Hotel Industry in Hong Kong Perform in Marketing on
Social Media Websites?
a a
Nga Ling Chan & Basak Denizci Guillet
a
School of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University in Hung
Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Version of record first published: 16 May 2011.
To cite this article: Nga Ling Chan & Basak Denizci Guillet (2011): Investigation of Social Media Marketing: How Does the
Hotel Industry in Hong Kong Perform in Marketing on Social Media Websites?, Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 28:4,
345-368
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Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 28:345–368, 2011
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1054-8408 print / 1540-7306 online
DOI: 10.1080/10548408.2011.571571
INVESTIGATION OF SOCIAL MEDIA

MARKETING: HOW DOES THE HOTEL
INDUSTRY IN HONG KONG PERFORM IN
MARKETING ON SOCIAL MEDIA WEBSITES?
Nga Ling Chan
Downloaded by [University of Saskatchewan Library] at 11:55 28 September 2012
Basak Denizci Guillet
ABSTRACT. The purpose of this study is to investigate the extent to which social media marketing
is being utilized in the Hong Kong hotel industry. Marketing performance of 67 hotels in Hong Kong
on 23 social media sites was evaluated according to 18 criteria adapted from past studies. The results
indicate that hotels generally have a poor performance in using social media to learn about customers.
Major problems regarding the hotels’ social media marketing efforts are identified. Implications behind
these problems and recommendations for improvement are made accordingly.
KEYWORDS. Social media marketing, hotels, Hong Kong
INTRODUCTION to communicate with the customers, namely the

social media (SM).
Signifying a new version of World Wide Web Though SM is a relatively new media
after the dot-com bubble burst in 2001, Web 2.0 emerged in recent years, it is popularly used
brought an unprecedented change in the online around the world. According to comScore
users’ behavior. In the past, websites were mainly (2008, 2009a, 2009b), SM reached a penetra-
personal, static, and published by the website tion of 70.2, 74.6, and 60.6% in the United
owner in such a way that visitors could only States, Europe, and Asia-Pacific, respectively,
view the web content (Adebanjo & Michaelides, in 2008 as a percentage of the total number of
2010; O’Reilly, 2005). However, in Web 2.0, Internet users. While SM penetration statistics
websites are collaborative, dynamic, interactive, are impressive, it is more important to look at
and users are actively participating in the gen- the implications. Today, it is no longer enough
eration or enrichment of content (Adebanjo & to solely rely on traditional media for mar-
Michaelides, 2010; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). keting, nor is it acceptable for the companies
More importantly, this shift in the user behavior to simply move the offline sales materials to
compels companies worldwide to use a new tool online. They have to step in and explore how
Nga Ling Chan (E-mail: ngalingchan@gmail.com) and Basak Denizci Guillet, PhD, Assistant Professor
(E-mail: hmbasakd@polyu.edu.hk) are in the School of Hotel and Tourism Management at The Hong Kong
Polytechnic University in Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
Address correspondence to: Basak Denizci Guillet, PhD, School of Hotel and Tourism Management, The
Hong Kong Polytechnic University, G/H, 8th Floor, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
345
346 JOURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKETING
to utilize this interactive media to communicate conducted in this field. The focus of past stud-
with their customers. By communication, it does ies are either too broad on the domain of online
not only refer to using SM as an online dis- marketing (Chung & Law, 2003; Law & Ngai,
tribution channel, but also as an effective tool 2005), or too narrow on a particular type of SM
to perform service recovery, develop relation- such as blogs and user reviews (Chan, 2008;
ship with customers, and build brand loyalty Ye, Law & Gu, 2009). It should be noted that
within the community. If used effectively, SM although SM is web-based in nature, SMM is
could help the company harness the power of only a subset of, but not equal to online market-
the brand advocates, and obtain strategic as ing. For instance, websites published by com-
well as operational benefits (“Meet the Tweet,” panies are static in nature. Despite the online
2009; Palmer & Koenig-Lewis, 2009). SM has reservation function, these websites are just one-
a particularly profound implication to the hos- way communication of which companies used
pitality and tourism industry. As one of the to give out information without interacting with
primary functions, SM allows sharing of infor- customers. Therefore, findings from past studies
mation among people from different parts of which focus on the domain of online market-
the world. This perfectly matches the travel- ing may not be applicable to SMM in full.
ers’ needs. According to O’Connor (2008), the Regarding findings from other studies that focus
intangibility and rigidity of the travel product on a particular type of SM such as blogs and
intensify the consumers’ information needs by user reviews (Chan, 2008; Ye et al., 2009), prob-
nature. The rise of SM gives customers the lem of generalization may occur as other types
types of information that they have long aspired, of SM such as social networking sites (SNSs)
which is unfiltered information (O’Connor). and virtual worlds were not considered in these
Realizing the importance of social media studies (Rosenberger & Stanley, 2006). Without
marketing (SMM), some companies acted an optimal focus on or only on SM, these stud-
proactively at the early stage of the SMM ies may not be a reliable source for companies
development. However, there are still a large to formulate their SMM strategy, nor could they
number of companies lagging behind. In order be used to benchmark the companies’ SMM
to help these companies pursue SMM effec- performance against that of their competitors.
tively, it is necessary for them to understand Lastly, these studies only aimed at finding cus-
what and how their competitors are doing in tomers’ perceptions or the impact of using these
SMM so that they could review their current tools for marketing (Chan, 2008; Chu, 2001;
performance as compared to their counterparts. Rong, Li, & Law, 2009; Ye et al., 2009) but
This is especially important to the Hong Kong there is lack of research that examines compa-
hospitality and tourism industry as an effec- nies’ SMM performance. Hence, there is a gap
tive SMM strategy may help the city attract in the literature and research on the hospitality
even more inbound tourists. According to the industry’s marketing performance with an opti-
Hong Kong Tourism Board (2009), approxi- mal focus on SM is needed in order to fill in the
mately 29.5 million tourists visited Hong Kong existing gap.
in 2008. In addition, it was also reported Further, the findings of this study may serve
that these tourists were from different coun- as a valuable source for hotels to formulate their
tries and regions—including America, Europe, SMM strategy. We believe that failure to obtain
Africa, Middle East, South Pacific, and Asia. such information may result in ineffective use of
The amount of income brought by these tourists company resources and undermine the value of
was $159 billion, with a growth rate of 11.7% SMM possibly brought to the firm. Overall, this
as compared to 2007. In this respect, it is cru- research may help hotels in Hong Kong as well
cial for the industry to expand its knowledge as their counterparts in other parts of the world
with regard to SMM in order to market more to improve their SMM efforts and enhance their
effectively to visitors worldwide. competitiveness in the global market. With that,
While it is important to investigate the indus- the purpose of this study is to investigate the
try’s SMM performance, few studies have been extent to which SMM is being utilized in Hong
Nga Ling Chan and Basak Denizci Guillet 347
Kong hotel industry. Specific objectives are as Types of Social Media

follows:
Blogs and Micro-Blogs
• to investigate the Hong Kong Hotel Blogs are websites that allow blogger(s) to
Associations member hotels’ performance keep logs, share personal experiences as well
in using blogs, micro-blogs, social net- as insights in a particular area, and inter-
working sites, virtual worlds, social book- act with readers through the posting of com-
marking sites, content communities sites, ments (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010; O’Connor,
and user reviews for marketing through 2008). They could be text-based, image-
digital marketing framework; based, audio-based, or video-based (Kaplan &
• to examine the corresponding implica- Haenlein, 2010; Wunsch-Vincent & Vickery,
tions in the form of hotels’ major prob- 2007). Micro-blog is another form of blogging
lems in doing SMM behind the industry’s that shares the same function, except that the
SMM performance in each of the five content of these blogs are mainly text-based and
phases proposed by the digital marketing are limited to a certain number of characters
framework—namely attracting, engaging, (O’Connor, 2008).
retaining, learning, and relating to cus-
tomers; Social Networking Sites
• to make recommendations to the hotel
industry based on the analysis conducted Social networking sites (SNSs) are websites
to improve their SMM efforts. where people create personal profiles, virtu-
ally meet, connect, communicate, and develop
relationships with other users whom they
LITERATURE REVIEW might or might not know in the real world
(O’Connor, 2008; Wunsch-Vincent & Vickery,
Definition of Social Media 2007; Rowland, 2007). Some of the SNSs are
As a media newly emerged in recent years, niche in nature; i.e., built with a particular orien-
there is no universally adopted definition of tation for a particular group of users (Wunsch-
social media. When reviewing the literature, we Vincent & Vickery, 2007). While SNSs are a
found that SM was sometimes being equated type of SM, some authors see all SM sites
with other terms such as social websites, as SNSs featuring different capabilities such
consumer-generated media, user-generated con- as photo or video-sharing capabilities (Boyd &
tent, and even Web 2.0. In the context of this Ellison, 2007).
study, SM can be defined as a group of Internet-
based applications that exist on the Web 2.0 plat- Virtual Worlds
form and enable the Internet users from all over Virtual worlds are online applications that
the world to interact, communicate, and share resemble the real world in a 3D environ-
ideas, content, thoughts, experiences, perspec- ment. Represented by a picture or a customized
tives, information, and relationships (Briscoe, human-like character, users could create and
2009; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010; Scott, 2007; have their own possessions or interact with oth-
Tylee, 2009; Xiang & Gretzel, 2009). In rela- ers in the virtual worlds as long as they are
tion to SM, social media marketing (SMM) shall not restricted by the rules of the game (Kaplan
be defined as “a social and managerial process & Haenlein, 2009; Wunsch-Vincent & Vickery,
by which individuals and groups obtain what 2007).
they need and want through” (Kotler, Bowen,
& Makens, 2006, p. 30) a set of Internet-based Collaborative Projects
applications that enable interaction, communi-
cation, collaboration of user-generated content Aiming at aggregating the community intel-
and hence, sharing of information such as ideas, ligence, these sites highly depend on the users
thoughts, content, and relationships. to work out the content. Collaborative projects
could be classified into two main types: wikis and Kierzkowski, McQuade, Waitman, and
and social bookmarking sites. With the aim Zeisser (1996). The e-marketing strategy pro-
to enhance the quality of content, wikis are posed by Chaffey integrates the e-marketing
sites with content open to users for contin- plan with other functions in the organization
uous edition and modification. In these sites, such as corporate strategy, plans for different
users interact with each other in the process markets and brands, e-business strategy, infor-
of content collaboration. Social bookmarking mation technology. Gloor proposed a roadmap
sites help people manage and store collec- to e-marketing which considers e-marketing
tions of links. With the links stored online, process as an ongoing activity that involves
users could share these bookmarks with oth- selecting the right e-marketing sources includ-
ers (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010; O’Connor, 2008; ing tools, people, techniques, and technologies.
Wunsch-Vincent & Vickery, 2007). Social tag- Proposed by Kierzkowski et al. (1996), the
ging, a term that is always being mixed up digital marketing framework (DMF) is a new
with social bookmarking, is not the same as marketing model developed around five ele-
social bookmarking. Tagging/Folksonomy is a ments that are fundamental to succeed in digital
technique used to do bookmarking. The tags— marketing. As the first step in implementing
i.e., the keywords assigned—would link to the digital marketing, marketers have to attract cus-
websites which often store the users’ favorite tomers and prospects to visit their websites
photos, audio, video, or text (O’Connor, 2008; voluntarily. Besides using the right tools to
Wunsch-Vincent & Vickery, 2007). attract the right type of customers, marketers
have to ensure that various marketing media
Content Community Sites are used to convey the brand’s web presence
so as to maximize the effectiveness of digi-
Content community sites are sites designed tal marketing. Secondly, the marketers should
for sharing of materials modified from pre- engage the visitors. This is done by providing
existing work or originated with people who a user-friendly web page with quality and cre-
upload the materials (Wunsch-Vincent & ative content of which visitors deem valuable,
Vickery, 2007). Typical media content shared inspiring, and well-presented. The aim of this
include text, photos, videos, and presentation stage is to stimulate the visitors’ interest to inter-
slides (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). These sites act with the company or other users of the web
are different from SNSs in such a way that page. With the consumers being engaged, the
creation of personal profile is not a prerequisite next step is to retain the visitors. While the
for using these shared contents (Kaplan & key of this stage is to give customers a reason
Haenlein, 2010). to return, the company should try to provide a
fresh but still valuable and engaging content to
Sites Dedicated for Feedback the consumers. Alternatively, Kierzkowski et al.
This type of social media includes websites suggested marketers to make use of the switch-
that allow users to post, read, review, respond, ing cost concept by increasing the time and
discuss, and share experiences, opinions, and energy that the customers spend on the site,
thoughts on a myriad of topics (Wunsch-Vincent or developing a virtual community on the web.
& Vickery, 2007). Online forums and sites ded- With more resources invested as well as the
icated for product reviews are two most typical relationships established with other users, the
forms of these sites. company could retain the consumers by reduc-
ing their chance of switching to sites operated
The Digital Marketing Framework by competitors. The cycle continues with the
step to learn about the customers—who they are,
With the involvement of the Internet technol- what they like, and how they behave. While it
ogy, innovative marketing models that utilized is important for the company to motivate vis-
electronic technologies emerged. The most pop- itors to participate, Kierzkowski et al. (p.18)
ular and widely used e-marketing frameworks pointed out that these media could be used to
are developed by Chaffey (2004), Gloor (2000), “test new product concepts,” obtain feedback for
proposed marketing programs, observe the vis- Developing the Research Instrument
itors’ preference, and listen to the opinions that
the customers voluntarily voice out on the web. Two studies were considered as particu-
All these provide the company with valuable larly relevant in developing the research instru-
information for future product development and ment for this study. Teo (2005) investigated to
opportunities to develop new relationship with what extent the business-to-consumer firms in
customers and prospects. The final step is to Singapore were using online marketing tools as
relate to customers. While personalized inter- well as the effectiveness of these tools perceived
action and marketing effort is the heart of this by the managerial staff in these companies. A
stage as well as the whole process, Kierzkowski questionnaire, which comprised 38 items that
et al. emphasized the need for marketers to asked about the online marketing tools used
maximize the full potential of the interactive by these companies and the features carried by
media, especially those particularly applicable these tools, was distributed. The 38 items were
to the company’s product category. Besides, it is grouped under the five elements of DMF and
equally important for the company to integrate the respondents were asked to rate the usage
digital marketing into the marketing programs and perceived effectiveness of each of these
that they currently use. If the final stage is done items. Aiming at investigating the companies’
properly, it is likely that interactive media could performance in using online marketing tools, the
enhance the attractiveness and effectiveness of research done by Teo was somewhat similar to
the company’s relationship marketing effort. the topic of this study. The major difference was
The justification of choosing this model over that only a subset of online marketing was in
the others is twofold. First, as acknowledged and concern of this study. Waters, Burnett, Lamm,
used by many scholars (Arnott & Bridgewater, and Lucas (2009) investigated non-profit orga-
2002; Chong, Shafaghi, Woollaston & Lui, 2009; nizations’ performance in terms of using SNSs
Kiani, 1998; Teo & Tan, 2002), Kierzkowski as a relationship building tool. The Facebook
et al.’s (1996) digital marketing framework is a profiles of selected organizations were analyzed
prominent model in the context of e-marketing based on the presence of 41 items, most of
frameworks. Although it was developed 14 which were grouped under three main cate-
years ago, it is still used in many studies as gories: organizational disclosure, information
a basis of their methodology. For instance, Teo dissemination, and involvement.
and Tan (2002) adopted and analyzed DMF in The checklist used to evaluate the hotels’
the Asian context to show how online compa- SMM performance was based on the question-
nies can strategize opportunities in the digital naire used by Teo (2005) and the evaluation
world. criteria used by Waters et al. (2009). Items used
Second, though Kierzkowski et al. (1996) did in these two researches were selectively adopted
not explicitly define digital marketing and the and modified to fit in the context of SM so as to
examples used for illustration were not com- ensure the validity.
pletely pertained to the types of SM addressed Regarding the process of development, we
in this research, interactive media were at the first examined the 38 questionnaire items used
core of their study. More importantly, some of the in Teo’s (2005) study as these questionnaire
characteristics and benefits of interactive media items had already been grouped under the
discussed by Kierzkowski et al. do apply to SM. five phases of the digital marketing framework
These include the ability to communicate to which is the framework of this study. Studying
individual clients, learn from feedback given the online marketing tools grouped under each
by customers, facilitate interactions between phase of the digital marketing framework, we
prospects, deliver richer information in a more first eliminated items/tools that are more appli-
effective manner, learn about the customers’ cable to the larger domain of online marketing;
preferences, and build relationship as well as i.e., not specific enough for SMM. Besides,
customer loyalty (Kierzkowski et al.). Hence, the items/tools that are not applicable to SMM
DMF should, to a certain extent, be applicable were also eliminated. For instance, “Mnemonic
to this study. branding,” which was one of the items/online
marketing tools grouped under the first phase about customers & prospects” in our study.
(Attracting) in the study done by Teo, was elim- Another example is to group “Security features”
inated. Mnemonic branding refers to “using the and “Privacy statements” together as one item to
firm’s name as the URL” which “allows users check on hotels’ self-initiated SM sites.
to find the firm’s website easily without hav- With reference to Waters et al.’s (2009)
ing to browse through search engines” (Teo, study, which is specifically related to SM, some
p. 207). Since a search engine was primarily items from the study of Teo (2005) were fur-
used to search for a user account in the six ther modified to fit in the context of SM to
types of SM evaluated in this study, this item enhance the relevancy of this research. For
was considered as inapplicable in our study. In instance, “Emails to update about new prod-
addition, SM sites evaluated in this research ucts” in phase 5 was modified as “Updating
were mostly web pages created on third-party users about content change (by emails/ RSS).”
SM sites. In other words, most SM sites evalu- Instead of promoting new products/ services,
ated in this research were web pages hosted by updating users about content change is more
hotel companies who were using the services important in making the customers feel related
provided by a third-party. Since the hyperlink to the company’s SMM efforts. Hence, such
to the web pages held on the third-party SM modification was made so as to make the eval-
sites is related to the design and programming uation criteria fit into the context of SM. A sec-
of the third party SM sites which is a decision ond example is “Customized product/service”
made by third party companies rather than by which is another criterion grouped under phase
the hotel company itself, this item “Mnemonic 5—Relating (Teo). Instead of the hotels’ actual
branding” was considered as not applicable to products/services, the SM sites they run on the
SMM in this study again. Another example is web and their SMM efforts are at the center
“Adequate bandwidth” which is another crite- of SMM. Hence, this item is modified so that
rion grouped under the first phase of DMF the evaluation criterion could fit into the context
(Attracting). Although speed of Internet access of SM. By “customization/personalization,” we
is also important for SMM, it is believed that did not investigate whether the hotels pro-
this item is related to the larger domain of vided customized services or not. Instead, we
online marketing. The same explanation applies examined whether their SMM efforts were
to “Rapid information loading time” which personalized or not. For example, we would
is a criterion grouped under the third phase like to examine whether the hotels provided
of DMF (Retaining). Other examples include personalized responses to individual customers’
“Transaction capabilities” and “Provide online queries or complaints or not. Additionally,
order tracking” which are the online market- we see whether members were individually
ing tool grouped under phase 2 (Engaging), addressed, if a virtual community was created.
and phase 3 (Retaining), respectively. Although Besides modifying the evaluation criteria
the ultimate aim of SMM is to help the com- based on the study done by Waters et al. (2009),
pany run a more prosperous business, SMM some items used by Teo (2005) were incorpo-
is about sharing, communicating with the cus- rated with the evaluation criteria used by Waters
tomers, and building a relationship. Since SMM et al. to enhance the validity of this research. For
is not another channel for distributing the com- instance, the criterion “Linkages to core busi-
pany’s products/services, “Provide online order ness” in the study done by Teo was incorporated
tracking” is considered to be not applicable to with the six items listed under “Disclosure” in
SMM. the study done by Water et al. In order to make
After eliminating the irrelevant items, the the company’s SMM efforts worthy, the SM
next step was to group items/tools that are sim- sites must show a certain linkage to the com-
ilar to each other. For example, the criterion pany’s core business. Besides checking whether
“Information capture” and “Gather information the activities or the discussion held on the com-
about new potential customers” were grouped pany’s SM sites were related to the hotel’s core
together as one item “Information captured business or not, organizational disclosure was
deemed as one of the ways to make the com- January–March 2010. The target population was
pany’s SMM efforts related to its core business. 109 hotels that are members of the Hong Kong
This is because hotel companies could make use Hotels Association (HKHA, 2009). Sixty-seven
of this space to introduce the company to its cus- hotels that were rated on TripAdvisor and man-
tomers. For instance, the hotel companies could aged by an international company were drawn as
introduce their vision, mission, history, distinc- the sample of this research. Such a criterion was
tive identity of each of the brands under the adopted since large corporations tend to have a
group, etc. diversified portfolio of hotel companies in terms
of type and class of hotel. Hence, the sample
was likely to be more representative. In addi-
METHODOLOGY tion, sampling with this criterion allowed exam-
ination of SMM performance across different
This study is a descriptive research that inves- business levels since large corporations usually
tigates the extent to which SMM is being uti- own several brands. Thus, the researchers could
lized by Hong Kong hotel industry. Secondary examine the hotels’ SMM efforts in terms of
data was used and retrieved from various online three different levels, namely corporate, brand,
sources. The hotels’ SMM performance was as well as property. The hotels analyzed by prop-
assessed by observing their actions on the SM erty, brand, and corporation are presented in
sites. Data were collected during the period of Table 1.
TABLE 1. List of Hotels Included in the Study
Property-level Brand-level Corporate-level
1 Central Park Hotel Dorsett Hotels Far East Consortium Intl. Ltd.
2 City Garden Hotel – Sino Group of Hotels
3 Conrad Hong Kong – Hilton
4 Cosmo Hotel Hong Kong Cosmo Hotels Far East Consortium Intl. Ltd
5 Cosmo Kowloon Hotel Cosmo Hotels Far East Consortium Intl. Ltd
6 Cosmopolitan Hotel Hong Kong Cosmopolitan Hotels Far East Consortium Intl. Ltd
7 Courtyard by Marriott Courtyard by Marriott Marriott Intl.
8 Crowne Plaza Causeway Bay Crowne Plaza InterContinental Hotels & Resorts
9 Dorsett Far East Hotel Dorsett Hotels Far East Consortium Intl. Ltd
10 Dorsett Kowloon Hotel Dorsett Hotels Far East Consortium Intl. Ltd
11 Dorsett Seaview Hotel Dorsett Hotels Far East Consortium Intl. Ltd
12 EAST EAST Hotels Swire Hotels
13 Eaton Hotel Hong Kong Eaton Hotels Langham Hotels Intl.
14 Empire Hotel Causeway Bay The Empire Hotel & Asia Standard Intl. Group
Resorts
15 Empire Hotel Wan Chai The Empire Hotels & Asia Standard Intl. Group
Resorts
16 Empire Hotel Tsim Sha Tsui The Empire Hotels & Asia Standard Intl. Group
Resorts
17 The Excelsior Hong Kong Excelsior Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group
18 Express by Holiday Inn Holiday Inn Express/ InterContinental Hotels & Resorts
Causeway Bay Express by Holiday Inn
19 Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong – Four Seasons
20 Gateway – Marco Polo Hotels
21 Hong Kong Gold Coast Hotel – Sino Group of Hotels
22 Grand Hyatt Hong Kong – Hyatt
23 Hong Kong Guangdong Hotel Guang Dong Hotels Guangdong (Intl.) Hotel Mgmt Ltd.
24 Harbour Grand Hong Kong Harbour Grand Hotels Harbour Plaza Hotels & Resorts
25 Harbour Grand Kowloon Harbour Harbour Grand Hotels Harbour Plaza Hotels & Resorts
Plaza Hong Kong
(Continued)
TABLE 1. (Continued)
Property-level Brand-level Corporate-level
26 Harbour Plaza Metropolis Harbour Plaza Hotels Harbour Plaza Hotels & Resorts
27 Harbour Plaza North Point Harbour Plaza Hotels Harbour Plaza Hotels & Resorts
28 Harbour Plaza Resort City Harbour Plaza Hotels Harbour Plaza Hotels & Resorts
29 Holiday Inn Golden Mile Holiday Inn InterContinental Hotels & Resorts
30 Hyatt Regency, Sha Tin – Hyatt
31 Hyatt Regency, Tsim Sha Tsui – Hyatt
32 InterContinental Hong Kong InterContinental Hotels InterContinental Hotels & Resorts
33 InterContinental Grand Stanford InterContinental Hotels InterContinental Hotels & Resorts
34 Island Pacific Hotel – Sino Group of Hotels
35 Island Shangri-La, Hong Kong – Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts
36 The Kowloon Hotel Harbour Plaza Hotels Harbour Plaza Hotels & Resorts
37 Kowloon Shangri-La – Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts
38 Lan Kwai Fong Hotel Dorsett Hotels Far East Consortium Intl. Ltd
39 The Langham, Hong Kong The Langham Hotels Langham Hotels Intl.
40 Langham Place, Mongkok Langham Place Hotels Langham Hotels Intl.
41 Le Meridien Cyberport – Starwood Hotels & Resorts
42 Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong Mandarin Oriental Hotels Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group
43 Marco Polo Hongkong Hotel – Marco Polo Hotels
44 JW Marriott Hotel Hong Kong JW Marriott Marriott Intl.
45 Hotel Nikko Hongkong Hotel Nikko Nikko Hotels Intl.
46 Novotel Century Hong Kong – Accor
47 Novotel Citygate Hong Kong – Accor
48 Novotel Nathan Road Kowloon – Accor
49 Park Hotel Hong Kong Park Hotels Park Hotel Group
50 The Park Lane Hong Kong – The Park Lane Hotel
51 The Peninsula Hong Kong – The Peninsula Hotel
52 Prince – Marco Polo Hotels
53 Ramada Hong Kong Hotel Ramada Hotels Wyndham Worldwide
54 Ramada Hotel Kowloon Ramada Hotels Wyndham Worldwide
55 Regal Airport Hotel – Regal Hotels
56 Regal Hongkong Hotel – Regal Hotels
57 Regal Kowloon Hotel – Regal Hotels
58 Regal Oriental Hotel – Regal Hotels
59 Regal Riverside Hotel – Regal Hotels
60 Renaissance Harbour View Renaissance Hotels Marriott Intl.
61 Renaissance Kowloon Hotel Renaissance Hotels Marriott Intl.
62 The Royal Pacific Hotel & T. – Sino Group of Hotels
63 Sheraton Hong Kong Hotel & T. Sheraton Hotels & Resorts Starwood Hotels & Resorts
64 Hong Kong SkyCity Marriott Marriott Hotels & Resorts Marriott Intl.
65 The Upper House The House Collection Swire Hotels
66 W Hong Kong W Hotels Starwood Hotels & Resorts
67 Wharney Guang Dong Hotel Guang Dong Hotel Guangdong (Intl.) Hotel Mgmt Ltd.
Moreover, sampling with this criterion the HK property (e.g., JW Marriott Hotel HK).
allowed examination of SMM performance If the researchers found that the hotel had not
across different business levels as large corpora- done any marketing on SM sites by property-
tions usually own several brands. Finally, large level, a second search by the hotel’s brand name
corporations are likely to have more resources would then follow. With the same principle, a
and well-organized marketing systems. third search by the hotel’s corporate name would
Regarding the investigation process, each then be done if the researchers found that the
hotel company was manually searched on the hotel had not done any marketing on SM sites
selected SM sites. Researchers first searched the by brand-level. To ensure the relevancy, SMM
hotel’s SMM efforts by property name, which efforts done at the brand and corporate-level
refers to the SMM work done by marketers of were credited as the hotel’s SMM efforts only if
they were relevant to the Hong Kong property. approximately 1.5 to 2 hours to examine the
In addition, the search was done with differ- SMM efforts of a property. The time span var-
ent combination of names so as to ensure the ied according to the extensiveness of the hotel’s
validity. For hotel companies like Four Seasons SMM efforts and the number of combinations
which only have one brand under the corpo- could be formed with the hotel’s name. For
ration, the SMM efforts were credited to the properties that were not present on the SM plat-
corporate level. form, we still needed about 1 hour for each hotel
SM sites were selected based on the fol- to verify its absence on the SM.
lowing criteria: Firstly, the site must fit the
definition of SM as defined in literature review.
Secondly, these sites must be relevant to the FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
hotel industry. By relevant, it does not only
mean the content is related to the industry, but An Overview of the Hotel Industry’s
also refers to the feasibility for hotels to inter- Social Media Marketing Performance
act with customers on the websites. It should
be noted that these two criteria must be used Among the 23 SM sites investigated, Twitter
together to filter out websites that are incompati- (56.7%) and Facebook (53.7%) were the most
ble with the purpose of this research. Otherwise, widely used SM sites in the industry. In most
SNSs like Dogster would be included in the cases, hotels had more extensive marketing
study. Additionally, it should be noted that efforts on Facebook. One possible reason is
online travel agents such as Expedia were that the nature of these two sites is different
excluded as well since managers could not as micro-blogs tend to offer fewer functions
respond to the reviews posted on these sites. and limit the number of words posted in
Lastly, the websites were selected based on their each message. The most frequent and common
popularity. Besides statistics quoted in studies activity that hotels do is to promote the com-
and marketing research, the site’s frequency of pany’s discounted products or services offered
being cited in the literature could be an indica- to general guests or sometimes, exclusively to
tor of its popularity. Table 2 lists the 23 SM sites the online community. Other popular activities
evaluated in this study. are answering guests’ inquiries, handling com-
Sixty-seven hotels were first grouped accord- plaints, and holding contests. Behind Twitter and
ing to their corporation and brand. The process Facebook, YouTube (38.8%), Flickr (26.9%),
then began with an examination of the hotels’ and TripAdvisor (23.9%) were the other pop-
corporate, brand, and property official website ularly used SM sites in the industry. Hotels
to check whether icons for third-party SM sites mainly used YouTube to show commercials that
or self-initiated SM sites were available or not. highlight the company’s uniqueness as well as
Next, each of the 23 SM sites was visited and the introduce the company’s products and services
hotels were searched manually by their property, to guests. Besides using the channel to engage
brand, and corporate name. To ensure the valid- customers by showing videos regarding culi-
ity of this research, all possible combinations nary skills or campaigns run in the past, hotels
of the hotels’ name were searched. The con- also used it for human resources purposes. For
tent resulted from the search were then analyzed instance, Hyatt and Shangri-La Hotels utilized it
carefully according to the evaluation criteria to instill a customer-oriented service attitude into
specified in Table 3. An online translation tool the employees and introduce the company to the
(Google Translate) was used if the content were (potential) internal customers. All hotels except
written in language(s) other than English. Notes one used Flickr to show photos of the hotels’
were also taken as a recap of each hotel’s SMM interior. In particular, large corporations such
performance throughout the process. Hotel com- as Mandarin Oriental Hotels have very well-
panies like Four Seasons which only have one organized accounts which are user-friendly as
brand under the corporation, the SMM efforts compared to other hotels which just upload the
were credited to the corporate level. We needed photos without any classification. About 24%
TABLE 2. Social Media Sites Evaluated
SM sites evaluated References
Blogs
Self-initiated blogs Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010; O’Connor, 2008
Windows Live Spaces Boyd & Ellison, 2007; Kim, Jeong, & Lee, 2009
Skyrock Boyd & Ellison, 2007; Kim, Jeong, & Lee, 2009; O’Connor, 2008
Blogger Chambers, 2008; O’Connor, 2008
Live Journal Boyd & Ellison, 2007
Micro-blogs
Twitter Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010; Kim, Jeong, & Lee, 2009; Palmer & Koenig-Lewis, 2009
Social networking sites
Facebook Boyd & Ellison, 2007; Illum, Ivanov, & Liang, 2010; Palmer & Koenig-Lewis, 2009;
Waters, Burnett, Lamm, & Lucas, 2009; Xiang & Gretzel, 2009
MySpace Graham, Faix, & Hartman, 2007; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010; Kim, Jeong, & Lee,
2009; Palmer & Koenig-Lewis, 2009; Xiang & Gretzel, 2009
LinkedIn Boyd & Ellison, 2007; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010; Kim, Jeong, & Lee, 2009;
O’Connor, 2008; Palmer & Koenig-Lewis, 2009
Friendster Boyd & Ellison, 2007; Kim, Jeong, & Lee, 2009; O’Connor, 2008; Palmer &
Koenig-Lewis, 2009; Waters, Burnett, Lamm, & Lucas, 2009
Xing Boyd & Ellison, 2007; O’Connor, 2008
Bebo Boyd & Ellison, 2007; O’Connor, 2008; Palmer & Koenig-Lewis, 2009; Waters,
Burnett, Lamm, & Lucas, 2009
Friends Reunited Kim, Jeong, & Lee, 2009; Palmer & Koenig-Lewis, 2009
Orkut Boyd & Ellison, 2007; Kim, Jeong & Lee, 2009; O’Connor, 2008
Virtual worlds
Second Life Kaplan & Haenlein, 2009, 2010; O’Connor, 2008; Xiang & Gretzel, 2009
Hi5 Boyd & Ellison, 2007; O’Connor, 2008; Waters, Burnett, Lamm, & Lucas, 2009
Collaborative projects
Social bookmarking
Digg Kim, Jeong & Lee, 2009; O’Connor, 2008
Delicious Kim, Jeong, & Lee, 2009; O’Connor, 2008
Content community sites
Video
YouTube Boyd & Ellison, 2007; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010; Kim, Jeong, & Lee, 2009;
Palmer & Koenig-Lewis, 2009; Xiang & Gretzel, 2009
Self-initiated Sauter, 2009
Photos
Flickr Boyd & Ellison, 2007; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010; Kim, Jeong & Lee, 2009; Xiang &
Gretzel, 2009
Sites for feedback
TripAdvisor Sauter, 2009; Xiang & Gretzel, 2009
Zagat Xiang & Gretzel, 2009
of hotels responded to customer reviews on to communicate with (potential) internal cus-

TripAdvisor and 75% of these properties pro- tomers. All blogs were text-based and images
vided personalized responses. As in other SM were posted to enhance the attractiveness.
sites, 25% of these hotels could not sustain their Finally, 86.7% of them incorporated videos to
efforts and provided one-off response. enrich the content. Among other SM sites, only
The remaining SM sites were unpopular Second Life, MySpace, and LinkedIn were used
among hotels analyzed. Only 15 out of 67 hotels by a small number of properties. Moreover, only
used blogs for marketing. These hotels, which one hotel group has launched its own video shar-
belong to five different corporations, mostly ing site. None of the remaining SM sites were
used self-initiated blog (80%). Two-thirds of used by the hotels. One possible reason is that
these hotels used it for external communica- some of these sites are only popular in particular
tions while the remaining one-third used it regions. For example, Friendster is particularly
TABLE 3. Evaluation Criteria Grouped Under Unfortunately, some hotels overadvertised on

Five Phases of Digital Marketing Framework the SM sites, which is not suggested in SMM
(“Let’s Get Digital,” 2009). Finally, 30 of these
Phase Evaluation criteria 48 hotels (62.5%) were affiliated with other
organizations on SM sites. In most cases, the
Attracting Company website shown presence on
social media affiliated party was either a charity or airline.
Affiliate program It appears that these partnerships are associ-
Promotions ated with the corporate social responsibility or
Engaging Lucky draws/contests/campaigns/games loyalty program launched by the hotels.
Creation of virtual communities
Language
Forum/discussion groups Phase 2—Engaging
Retaining Dynamic content
Security feature & privacy statements

Of the 48 hotels that are present on SM,
Hyperlinks to related sites
Forums/campaigns/contests/lucky 91.7% of them created virtual communities
draws/virtual communities/games online and they are all created on third-party
Learning Information captured about customers & SM sites. While this figure looks encourag-
prospects
ing, the majority of these hotels actually did
Market research
Supporting chat groups not seem to understand the meaning behind
Relating Customization/personalization the creation of virtual communities which is
Updating users about content change to facilitate interactions between company and
Real time interactions
users and hence, engage as well as retain these
Linkages to core business
visitors. As reflected by the fact that only 9
out of these 44 hotels tried to solicit interac-
tions among people in the community, it is clear
popular among Malaysians, Singaporeans, and that the majority of them failed to interact with
Indonesians (Loizos, 2007; Einstein, 2009). customers or facilitate interactions within the
Thus, hotels may opt to concentrate their efforts community. Worse still, only three of them have
on the more widely used SM like Facebook. actively participated in the discussions.
In addition, advertising is prohibited on social The next most common way hotels used to
bookmarking sites which may explain the pique customers’ interest was by holding con-
hotels’ absence on this SM. tests or games. Among the 48 hotels that are
present on SM sites, 23 of them used this tactic.
Social Media Marketing Performance While 78.3% of these campaigns were initiated
Under Five Phases of Online Marketing at corporate level, only 26.1% and 17.4% of
them were run by property and brand, respec-
Among the 67 hotels investigated, 48 of them tively. Another way to engage the visitors is to
were present on SM sites. Table 4 provides provide a user-friendly web page (Kierzkowski
an overview of the hotels’ SMM performance et al., 1996); the number and type of lan-
under the five phases of online marketing. guage that hotels use on the SM sites play
a role in this stage. As expected, the major-
Phase 1—Attracting ity of them (48) only used English. Around
14 hotels used two languages while only 4 hotels
Among the 48 hotels that are present on the used three languages to communicate with the
SM sites, 79.2% of them indicated their pres- users. While English was the dominant language
ence on SM in the company’s website using used by all hotels, the second most popularly
either logos or hyperlinks. Promotion is the used language was traditional Chinese (13). It
most common activity which takes up 87.5% of appears that the hotels using this language aim
the sample. Discounted services or new prod- to attract the local market, mostly for their
ucts offered in the hotels’ food and beverage food and beverage businesses. Other languages
outlets were often the items to be promoted. used include Japanese (4), German (3), and
TABLE 4. Social Media Marketing Performance Under Five

Phases of Digital Marketing Framework
Element (1)—Attracting:
Company website shows presence on SM 38
On property website 17
On brand website 7
On corporate website 27
Promotions 42
Affiliation 30
Only with brands under same corporation 20
Only with brands under different corporation 3
Both 7
Element (2)—Engaging:
Campaigns/contests/lucky draws/games 23
By property 6
By brand 4
By corporation 18
Creation of virtual communities 44
By property 22
By brand 15
By corporation 29
Forum/discussion groups 9
Solicit interaction 9
Active participation 3
Number of language(s) used
Three 4
Two 14
One 30
Type of language(s) used
English 48
Japanese 4
German 3
Chinese (traditional) 13
Chinese (simplified) 2
Element (3)—Retaining:
Dynamic content 45
Security feature & privacy statements 10
Hyperlinks to related sites 45
From SM sites to company website(s) 45
From SM sites to company related web/ SM site(s) 31
From company website(s) to SM sites 38
Discussion forum/campaigns/contests/lucky 44
draws/virtual communities/games
Element (4)—Learning:
Information captured about customers & prospects 17
Market research 11
Supporting chat groups 9
Element (5)—Relating:
Response to customers 33
With universal message(s) 2
With personalized response 29
Unable to judge if response is customized or not 2
Personalization
Individually addressing members when log in –
Updating users about content change 10
Real time interactions –
Linkage to core business 45
Activities held/discussion topics related to core business 21
Hyperlinks to hotel’s official site 45
Organizational disclosure 37
Promotions 42
Simplified Chinese (2). Unfortunately, hotels map which could be easily accessed through the
using more than one language on their SM hyperlink placed at the bottom of the company
sites did not consistently use multiple lan- website. The second approach was to have a ded-
guages every time they posted a message icated space on a particular page on the company
online. Occasionally, some of them only used website/SM sites. They would then list out all
traditional Chinese for their promotions and the SM sites that they are present in this space.
campaigns. Typical examples of this approach were the list
displayed in Marriott News Center as well as
Phase 3—Retaining the favorite links listed on the left hand mar-
gin of a Facebook page. Although this approach
A fresh but still engaging content gives cus- also allowed customers to access the SM sites
tomers a reason to return to the site. Hotels easily, customers would not be able to see the
seemed to perform well in this aspect as 93.8% list if they do not even click to that particular
of them updated the content with promotions, web page. The third approach adopted by hotels
contests, and messages related to events held by was placing icon(s) of the SM sites that they are
the company or festivals held in the city. Yet, present somewhere on the company’s website
this figure does not reflect the truth accurately. that are highly visible, usually at the bottom or
Since hotels were considered to be meeting this corner of the site. Although this method is also
criterion as long as they had updated one of their user-friendly, it does not allow the companies to
SM sites in the past, this figure cannot tell to add a brief description for each of the SM work
what extent did the hotels update the content, nor they have done as in the two methods mentioned
could it tell the update frequency. In addition, above. Despite these arrangements, hotels gen-
this figure disguised the fact that some hotels that erally have problems in providing a complete
did update their SM sites in the past have in fact list to customers. Out of the 15 hotels who have
ceased their SMM efforts later on. Providing launched SM sites by themselves, 10 provided
easy access to the SM sites also encourages security features along with privacy statements.
customers to revisit. Generally, hotels had an Since hotels do not create community on these
excellent performance in this aspect. Among the self-initiated sites, the security feature SSL was
48 hotels that are present on the SM sites, only not a valid criterion to check.
3 of them did not provide hyperlinks to facili-
tate access to the company’s website/ SM sites. Phase 4—Learning
For those hotels that provided hyperlinks, all
of them provided the URL to the company’s Hotels examined had a relatively poor per-
official website on their SM sites and 38 of formance in this stage. Among the 48 hotels,
them showed their presence on SM in the com- 35.4% made an effort to obtain customers’ infor-
pany’s official site. To make the tool even more mation. They have done this in three ways.
user-friendly, 31 of them provided hyperlinks Firstly, they used Facebook application to cre-
to other websites/SM sites related to the com- ate polls and games on their fan page. When
pany. These are hyperlinks to the company’s accessing to these applications, customers were
account held on YouTube, Twitter, and Flickr. If asked to allow the company to collect their pro-
it was a corporate account, it usually included file information and pictures posted on their
hyperlinks to its brands/properties’ SM page as sites. Secondly, they launched contests on SNSs.
well. Overall, hotels used three different ways For example, Starwood held a contest on its
to display the links. Firstly, some hotels had a Facebook page, asking its fans to send emails
dedicated web page on the company website to to the company to compete for free gifts. Third,
show customers the SM that they use. A typical hotels that have launched their own blogs also
example is Four Seasons’s Social Media AT- collected customers’ name, emails, and URLs
A-Glance. With this approach, customers could through the blog’s feedback channel.
then access this dedicated page through a highly Hotels should use SM to conduct infor-
visible icon placed on the site or through the site mal market research. However, only 11 hotels
attempted to do so. Regarding the research content change is also important in keeping a
topic, hotels generally asked for feedback on continuous relationship with them. Out of the
their loyalty program and the services they 15 hotels which have their self-initiated sites,
offered to customers. Additionally, questions only 10 of them informed users about content
regarding customers’ preference on food and change using RSS or emails. Different from
the way they redeem their points were also using the services provided by a third-party SM
raised. Not all hotels could successfully col- site, self-initiated sites refer to SM sites created
lected feedback from customer. For example, by the hotel companies. These sites mainly
the Langham Hotel Hong Kong could not obtain include self-initiated blogs and self-initiated
any response when they asked for feedback content community sites.
on their afternoon tea party. Finally, the third Finally, it is vital for hotels to make their
way to learn about customers was to sup- SMM efforts related to their business. Out of the
port chat groups. This was done by solicit- 32 hotels which held contests/games or initiated
ing interactions/discussions between hotels and discussions on SM, 21 prepared the activities
customers or within the community, which has or discussion topics related to the hotel’s core
been discussed in phase 2. business. For organizational disclosure, 37 of
these 48 hotels who were present on SM dis-
Phase 5—Relating closed some basic company information such
as address and contact details in their user pro-
After spending all the efforts to attract, files. A small number of hotels mentioned the
engage, retain, and learn about customers, the company’s mission, provided short descriptions
key issue in phase 5 of the digital market- of the company, or updated the customers about
ing framework is that marketers have to make recent news related to the company.
the customers feel related to the company.
Otherwise, the marketing efforts that the com- Hotels’ Major Problems in Doing Social
pany has paid would be worthless. As intro-
Media Marketing
duced by Kierzkowski et al. (1996), marketers
should make use of this opportunity to cus- The data analysis led us to seven prob-
tomize the interactions and tailor either the lems that hotels seem to have in doing SMM.
product or the marketing efforts so as to cre- Table 5 lists hotels’ seven major problems in
ate value for the efforts that the company paid doing SMM.
on doing online marketing. Hence, the criterion
“personalization” was derived with reference to Lack of Interaction Metween Hotels and
the digital marketing framework introduced by Customers
Kierzkowski et al.
In this stage, hotels tried to personalize One major problem identified in the hotels’
their SMM efforts by giving customized SMM efforts is that there is lack of interaction
response to customers on Facebook, Twitter, between hotels and customers. As mentioned
and TripAdvisor. Out of the 33 hotels who before, the number of hotels supporting chat
responded to customers’ inquiry/reviews, groups (9) was in sharp contrast to the number
29 provided personalized responses. For the of hotels holding promotions on SM sites (42).
criterion of individually addressing customers Nine hotels primarily refers to the number of
when they log in as members, it is not applicable hotels “supporting chat groups” in SMM which
to check as no hotels create a virtual community is one of the criteria in phase 4 (Learning).
on their self-initiated SM sites. Besides person- However, this criterion is considered as cor-
alization, socializing with customers is another responding to the criterion “forum/discussions
way to attain the goal of this stage. However, no groups” in phase 2 (Engaging). This is because
hotels used instant messaging to socialize with providing space for discussions and solicit-
customers on their SM sites. Due to the feature ing interactions within the community are
of dynamism in SM, informing customers about seen as actions that support chat groups on
TABLE 5. Hotels’ Major Problems in Doing Social Media Marketing
Problems Breakdown of the problems
1. Lack of interaction Supporting chat groups (9) versus holding promotions (42)
between hotels
and customers;
2. Lack of Unable to Unable to Stop marketing efforts on SM (22)
commitment to sustain SMM sustain SMM
sustain social efforts on efforts over
media marketing every SM time (13)
efforts site (15)
3. Problems Incomplete Inappropriate account setting (2)
encountered in hyperlink list
accessing hotels’ for accessing

social media sites the company
websites/SM
sites (18)
4. Inability to use Display basic information/no Display valuable information that could convey
social media to organizational disclosure (20) corporate identity (24)
disclose the
organizational
identity
5. Unresponsiveness Standard Responses with Selective Late response No response (48)
to guests response (4) wrong response (2) (2)
tone/content
(2)
6. Inaccurate content Language problems (grammar Content problems (wrong
and use of errors) (2) information/inappropriate/expired content) (7)
language
7. Lack of Corporate/brand-level SMM efforts Difficult to access individual hotels’ SM sites (3)
communications not aligned with property-level
between different efforts (15)
business levels
Note. Numbers in parentheses refer to the number of hotels in the sample having the problem.
SM. Hence, this criterion could also mean and services. Sometimes, these hotels even fail
“forum/discussions groups” while it is orig- to provide a space for customers to discuss or
inally referring to “supporting chat groups.” give feedback. A typical example is the setting
Most importantly, it reflects the fact that the in InterContinental’s Travelogue. The second
number of hotels using SM for promotions is type of hotels might have the sense to interact
much more than hotels using forum/discussion with customers but they fail to take action. They
group to engage the customers’ interest or to provide a discussion area or a channel to solicit
learn about the guests. feedback from customers. However, they nei-
In fact, hotels having such problem could be ther initiate nor participate in discussions. Since
classified into two types. The first type of hotels community in these sites seldom starts the dis-
does not seem to understand the essence of SM cussion by themselves, this results in the lack
which is to socialize with people. These hotels of interactions between hotels and customers as
only show promotional materials on the web well as within the community.
and treat SM as another advertising channel. Two reasons are identified to explain the lim-
In other words, these hotels just keep post- ited interactions between hotels and customers.
ing (promotional) content on the sites without Firstly, the content is not engaging enough to
interacting with customers. This might make make the customers start or participate in the
customers feel that the hotel does not want to discussions. For instance, some blog entries
socialize but attempts to hard sell their products relating to environmental issues in Marriott’s
blog could only obtain two to five comments may affect the success of SMM. Lastly, hotels
from customers while, at the same time, another that do not interact with customers would be in a
entry regarding the company’s diversity pro- disadvantageous position as some of their com-
gram could generate as many as 220 comments. petitors are doing quite well in this aspect. For
This implies that the former blog entries may example, Starwood who has a good performance
not be interesting enough to initiate a discus- in its loyalty program’s Facebook page was able
sion within the community or motivate guests to to get as many as 33 responses in the research
leave comments on the site. The second reason questions that it raised in the past.
is that the company does not reply to customers’
posts in the past, as in Marriott’s chef blog. Lack of Commitment to Sustain Social
Having the perception that their comments or Media Marketing Efforts
questions would not be addressed, it is unlikely
that customers would start a discussion or ask Another common problem identified in the
questions again. All these contribute to the fail- hotels’ SMM performance is the absence of
ure of interactions. Not all hotels take a passive sustained commitment to SMM. This problem
role in interacting with customers but they just could be classified into three types. The first
fail to get customers involved in the discussions. type is that 15 companies in the sample are not
There are several possible reasons for this situ- able to sustain their SMM efforts on every SM
ation to happen. Firstly, customers may not be site that they are present. For instance, the Island
aware of the discussions initiated. For exam- Pacific Hotel was able to use a friendly tone
ple, as the research question that the Langham with statements like “Come and join . . . ” or
Hotel raised was not put on the front page “I posted 14 photos on . . . ” to talk to its cus-
of its Facebook account, it was unlikely that tomers when posting messages on Twitter and
customers would realize the questions posted Facebook at the earlier stage. However, the com-
and participate in the discussions that the hotel pany cannot sustain its effort on Twitter and
attempted to initiate. Another possible reason only posted hyperlinks to Facebook without any
is that companies did not make use of SM description in the recent tweets since January
to socialize with customers over time. Without 2010.
showing commitment or sincerity to build a The second type is that 13 companies out
good relationship with customers, it is unlikely of 48 hotels who were present on SM are not
for the company to obtain the community’s able to sustain their SMM efforts over time.
loyalty as well as active participation when dis- These companies update their SM sites infre-
cussions are raised. Finally, the discussion topic quently. For example, Sheraton Hotels have
may be too specific or too boring in such a way been present on Facebook since March 2008.
that not many customers would like to respond. However, the brand only had one post in 2008
Lack of interaction is a critical issue to and the next post was in March 2009. After that,
the hotel business. Firstly, doing SMM would the brand only kept a monthly or bi-monthly
become meaningless and resources spent on update and such efforts stopped again in January
SMM would be wasted if the essence and value 2010. Frequent update is important in SMM, as
of the social media—“socializing” with cus- Kierzkowski et al. (1996) suggested that a fresh
tomers is left out. Secondly, hotels would not be but still valuable content keeps the customers
able to engage the customers if there is a lack returning to the site. In addition, a dynamic
of interaction within the community. As sug- content could always engage the customers and
gested by Kierzkowski et al. (1996), helping the may even trigger a discussion within the com-
community to establish relationships with oth- munity. Since it is always easy to make the
ers could increase the visitors’ switching cost customers aware of the update and the cost of
and retain them on the site. Thirdly, interactions updating content in SM is relatively low, this
on SM sites play an important role in engag- group of companies should have taken advan-
ing customers. Since such engagement is critical tage of this distinctive feature of SM and update
to content generation in SM, lack of interaction their content more frequently.
The third type includes 22 companies that usually have their fan page/group account open
have stopped their SMM efforts. For instance, to public on SNSs. With this setting, customers
the City Garden Hotel Hong Kong was active on could have immediate access to the hotel’s SM
Facebook for one-and-a-half months only and page after becoming a fan or joining the com-
the company never updated the content again munity. However, not all hotels adopt this prac-
after September 2009. One possible explanation tice. Some hotels such as Cosmo Hotel Hong
for this lack of commitment to sustain the SMM Kong opt for a private setting for their group
efforts is the uncertainty about return on their account. This means that customers have to send
investment. Since SM is a relatively new media, a request for membership if they would like to
there is limited evidence of its financial returns. join the community. Undoubtedly, this setting
Hence, companies may have doubt as to whether is not user-friendly and might discourage the
their investment in SMM could turn into busi- guests.
ness or how much resources they should invest

in SMM. Inability to Use Social Media to Disclose
Nevertheless, having a sustained effort is
important as dynamic content is one of the major
the Organizational Identity
elements of SM as well as the key to do mar- While the purpose of disclosing the com-
keting on this platform. More importantly, the pany information in terms of its vision, mis-
company will be in a disadvantageous position sion, goals, and positioning is to let customers
while other competitors have shown great com- know more about the hotel, 24 hotels such as
mitment in using SM to reach out to customers Starwood are doing quite well in this aspect by
and build an ongoing relationship with them. highlighting the major features of the company
For instance, it is likely that customers would and each of its brand. However, 20 out of 48
be more engaged by Marriott’s blog—Marriott hotels who were present on SM just provide a
on the Move—rather than InterContinental’s minimal amount of company information and
Travelogue, as the former often updates the con- the content is often confined to a short descrip-
tent while the latter has not updated its blog tion of the hotel’s location or even only contact
since December 2009. information such as address, telephone number,
and URL. The problem is that this information
Problems Encountered in Accessing Hotels’ could be easily located and accessed in the com-
Social Media Sites pany’s official site. Hence, the company should
have extracted valuable information that could
Another problem identified in the hotels’ convey the company’s distinctive identity.
SMM efforts is the difficulties in accessing their
SM sites. Difficulty of access arises in two cir- Unresponsiveness to Guests
cumstances. First, the list of hyperlinks that
some hotels provide to customers for access- The next problem identified is about the com-
ing the company websites/SM sites is incom- pany’s apathy which is revealed in five types of
plete. Eighteen hotels out of 48 hotels who were responses that the companies gave to the cus-
present on SM had this problem. For instance, tomers. They are detailed as follows. The first
the list provided by Marriott Hotels on Marriott type is a standard response given by 4 hotels
News Center has two links to the company’s to positive and negative reviews. This standard
YouTube account missing. In this case, guests response is used to respond to all comments
would find it difficult to access these SM sites regardless of the language that the customers
as the company fails to show their presence on used to write the review. In some cases, hotels
these channels. used two sets of responses, one for responding
The second problem is related to the inappro- to positive comments and one for respond-
priate account setting chosen by the two sample ing to negative comments. A standard response
hotels on SNSs. With the intention to reach out might make customers feel that the companies
to both potential and existing customers, hotels are insincere and unconcerned about guests’
feelings and needs. The second type of response respond to a bad review posted in the discussion
given by 2 sample hotels has problems related to box of the brand Facebook page, which then
content and tone. Some management responses triggered another guest to write another bad
to customers’ negative reviews are too protec- experience. The worst part was that a third guest
tive in nature. For instance, one of the responses decided to cancel the booking and switch to
given by The Upper House’s management to a another hotel after reading the discussion and
customer’s review on December 8, 2009 is like seeking opinions from the guests who wrote the
arguing against the guest’s comments but not negative reviews.
giving a response to the guest directly. While it
is understandable that managers need to protect Inaccurate Content and Use of Language
their company’s interest, it is suggested to use a
soft approach. Inaccurate content refers to the information
The third type of response that shows posted on the SM sites being incorrect. Seven
the company’s apathy is selective responses out of 48 hotels that were present on SM had
(2 hotels). As in the previous cases, the com- problems in this area. Besides carelessness and
panies respond to customers. However, these uncaring attitude, another possible explanation
companies only reply to customers’ inquiry but for this problem to occur is the lack of a manage-
not bad comments that customers posted on ment and control system to administer the SM
the company’s SM site. Besides being apathetic sites. One plausible explanation is that the com-
about guests’ feelings and needs, one possi- panies do not have designated staff to manage
ble explanation for this to happen is that the the SM sites. Alternatively, the company may
staff responsible for managing the account is not have a control system in place to ensure
unsure about the correct way to respond to that accurate content are posted on the SM
the complaints or negative comments posted by sites and corrections are taken in time when
the guests. Being unresponsive to customers’ errors are discovered. Providing accurate and
negative comments may put a company in a dis- updated content is important in marketing as this
advantageous position as the company may lose may lead to unrealized promise and even dam-
the customers’ business in the future. aged reputations if the company fails to perform
The next type is a late response which was according to what they have stated in the mar-
observed in the case of 2 hotels. Companies fail keting material. For example, the Royal Pacific
to give a timely response to the inquiry that cus- Hotel held a campaign on Facebook between
tomers posted on the SM sites. For example, December–January, asking its Facebook fans to
the Dorsett Kowloon Hotel was sometimes late compete for prize by sharing how they would
in responding to customers. In some cases, the spend their Valentine’s Day which was also the
company replied to the customers 2 weeks or first day of the Chinese New Year in 2010.
a month after the customers posted the inquiry. Despite its hard work to engage the online
In one case, the company even replied to the community, it was blamed for releasing the cam-
customer half a year later. Late response is a paign results 2 days later than the original stated
critical issue to the company as it does not only date. As commented by the participants, the
show that the company has a low responsive- problem was that the company did not apolo-
ness to the customers, but also contributes to gize and the candidates were not notified of the
a potential loss of business. The final case that delay. As a result, the hotel’s credibility was
shows the company’s apathy is no response. damaged in its online community, leaving the
Among the 67 hotels invested, 48 of them do not guests with an unfavorable impression. Besides
respond to guests’ inquiry or review. As in the the content, two hotels have problems in using
case of late response, being unresponsive to cus- the language correctly when communicating
tomers could bring about potential business loss with guests. For instance, the Novotel Nathan
or even worse consequence—negative word of Road Kowloon Hong Kong made grammati-
mouth. For example, the Ramada Hotels did not cal mistakes and used an improper salutation
and ending when responding to a customer’s CONCLUSION

review on TripAdvisor. Although the message
is still understandable, this affects the hotel’s As a preliminary study conducted on hotels’
professional image. SMM efforts, this study has important findings.
Besides, as mentioned in the introduction,
Lack of Communication Between Different the findings from the past studies (Chung &
Law, 2003; Law & Ngai, 2005) mainly apply
Business Levels for the domain of online marketing which
The last major problem observed in the hotels’ may not be applicable in the SMM context.
SM sites is that there is insufficient commu- Findings revealed that SM sites managed by
nication among the corporation, brands, and corporate/brand level usually have a better per-
properties, which leads to two results. Firstly, formance. Furthermore, the hotel industry in
the corporate-/brand-level SMM efforts do not Hong Kong has a good start of doing SMM
align with the property-level efforts. This means as most corporations have shown a commit-
that there is a difference in the degree of com- ment to SMM. Hotel properties in Hong Kong
mitment that different business levels devoted should therefore grab the support from its corpo-
to SMM and hence, the way they do SMM. ration as well as learn from their competitors to
Fifteen out of 48 hotels that were present on improve their SMM efforts. Based on the find-
SM had this problem. Usually, the party who ings and problems addressed, we included eight
shows greater commitment to SMM is geared suggestions for hotels to improve their SMM
to utilize SM better by having more interactions efforts.
with guests, providing a more innovative and
user-friendly design SM site, holding different Understanding Social Media
kinds of activities and using various functions
such as poll or game application to engage the As a preliminary step of doing SMM, it is
customers. On the other hand, the party who essential for hotel companies to understand what
is less committed to SMM tends to use the social media is and how this media should be
SM for promotions and have less interaction used. Some hotels, especially those on prop-
with guests. This might happen when the cor- erty level, seem to have the misconception that
poration does not clearly communicate the level SM is just another advertising channel. Hence,
of commitment that each business level should they fail to socialize, respond, interact, and build
show, the expectations in terms of the market- relationship with customers, which is an essen-
ing activities carried out on the SM platform tial component of SM (Briscoe, 2009; Kaplan &
as well as the degree of support granted from Haenlein, 2010; Scott, 2007; Tylee, 2009; Xiang
the corporation. Secondly, inadequate commu- & Gretzel, 2009). Hotel management should
nication between different business levels may therefore understand the essence of social media
also cause the problem of accessing individual is to socialize with customers and hard sell is
hotels’ SM sites addressed before. Three hotels never the right strategy to be adopted on the SM
in the sample had this problem. Due to lack of platform (“Let’s Get Digital,” 2009).
close communications between the corporation
and the properties, the hyperlink list provided Aligning Social Media Marketing
in the corporate Facebook account is incom- Performance Across Different Levels
plete. For instance, the hyperlink to the Mandarin
Oriental Manila property’s Facebook account is To ensure that the corporation, brands, and
not included in the list. In that case, customers properties perform well in doing SMM, the
would find it difficult to access this property’s corporate level must clearly communicate to
SM site through the corporate Facebook account. the other levels regarding the purpose of doing
This decreases the value or usefulness of the list SMM, the ways that they should do SMM, and
as it is incomplete. the degree of support given by the corporation.
With clear and continuous communication, the employees’ work performance on the com-
company could align the level of commitment pany’s official SM sites, this control system
it exerts to SMM across different business lev- should also cover the unofficial SM sites that
els and the SMM performance of the whole employees opened for the company or for net-
company. working purpose. As in the case of the Empire
Hotel Hong Kong, employees are not behaving
themselves on the SNSs by leaving messages
Ensuring Control Systems Are in Place that are unfavorable to the company besides
using fraudulent language. As the account is
Control systems should be developed for dubbed Empire Hotel HK, it is possible for
each business level. For the corporate level, guests to reach this account when they search
the company can develop a system to control for the company’s SM account. In that case,
the brands and properties’ SMM performance. these employees’ behavior would leave a bad
This control system is crucial as the positive/ impression to the guests.
negative SMM impact created by one property
could affect other properties under the same Cooperating With the Human Resources
brand/corporation. In the Ramada case, the cus- Department
tomer said she would never stay in all Wyndham
properties again due to her bad experience with As social media are relatively new media,
the Ramada hotels. Although the customers’ companies might have to provide training to
negative impression to the hotel was not caused employees with regard to SM account man-
by a bad SMM effort in this case, the same prin- agement. As reflected in the Dorsett Seaview
ciple should apply to SMM. Besides controlling Hotel’s Facebook page, employee training takes
each business level’s SMM performance, this an important role in ensuring good SMM per-
system serves as a supporting system for align- formance. The staff only selectively responded
ing the company’s efforts across different levels. to the guests’ inquiries while giving two replies
Since this system could be used as a tool to mon- to another trivial post. In addition, this case
itor the SMM performance of different proper- also shows that a property-level control sys-
ties, the company could take corrective actions tem must be in place for monitoring purposes.
immediately in case inappropriate SMM activ- In terms of content, companies can educate its
ities such as hard selling, constantly ignoring employees about the correct way to respond
customers’ inquiries/complaints, or unreason- to different types of inquiries and actions that
ably bringing SMM to a halt are found on a should be taken when they doubt that the com-
particular SM site. Additionally, the corpora- plaint or negative review is a cheap shot taken
tion could also check how the properties have by competitors.
been using SM to interact with customers and Besides account management, companies
do market research so as to ensure the media is should make sure that the right department in
properly used and the resources spent on SMM the hotel is managing SMM sites. Since SMM
are not wasted. To make this suggestion feasible, is a kind of external communication, companies
the company could set the control system at the should ensure that the messages sent out in SM
brand-level first and have these brand-level sys- are accurate in terms of content and language.
tems under the command of a central control The latter is especially important when the con-
system held by the corporation. tent is written in a second language as a small
Besides the corporate level, each property spelling or grammatical mistake could change
should have its own control system to con- the meaning of the message and even become
trol its SMM performance and its employees’ offensive to others. Besides writing skills, train-
behavior on SM. With this system, hotels could ing regarding interpersonal skills may be needed
have timely updates and reduce the chance of since the staff needs to interact with the guests
having inaccurate content as well as delayed frequently on SM. As writing and interpersonal
response to the customers. Besides monitoring skills are generic capabilities, companies might
opt to hire people who are strong in these areas websites to facilitate and encourage people to
to save part of the training cost. In either case, bookmark the company’s websites/SM sites,
cooperation with the human resources depart- this helps increase the company’s exposure to
ment is a must. different SM sites.
Choosing the Appropriate Social Media Create Content and Design That Are
of Customers’ Interest
Although there are many SM available on the
Internet, it does not mean that hotels have to Engaging content plays a critical role in solic-
be present on all of them. In choosing which iting interactions within the community as well
SM to use, hotels should consider the follow- as retaining customers. As retaining customers
ing aspects. First, hotels should look at their is the prerequisite for learning and building rela-
competitors’ SMM work and consider being tionship with them (Kierzkowski et al., 1996),
present on the SM sites that their competitors providing valuable and interesting content on
are actively using over time. Most probably, SM sites become very important. In this aspect,
these are Facebook and Twitter as presented in companies should avoid hard selling on SM sites
the research results. By doing so, the compa- but offer more innovative content and design.
nies could ensure that they have gotten the same For instance, they could create interesting games
chance to build relationships with customers by themselves using the Facebook applica-
as their competitors. Secondly, hotels should tions. Alternatively, companies could hold more
take firm-specific traits into consideration. For campaigns/contests on different types of SM
instance, Crowne Plaza and Aloft chose to be sites. For example, a photo-related contest on
present on Second Life because this SM allows Flickr and a video-related one on YouTube
them to conduct activities that perfectly match could be appropriate. This idea brings about
their company’s positioning and target market. three advantages. First, companies are able to
Positioning their hotel as “The place to meet,” further utilize the SM sites that are currently
Crowne Plaza operates three meeting facilities being underutilized. Most probably, these are
in Second Life to let people experience the per- YouTube and Flickr as presented in the research
sonalized service and superior meeting facilities results. Second, holding campaigns/contests are
featured by the hotel. For Aloft, the company more likely to increase the attractiveness and
aims to use it as a tool to attract young peo- public awareness of the company’s SM efforts.
ple who are keen on using technology (Jana, Third, it serves as a way to have the customers
2006). Both examples show that hotels should update the SM sites for the company (“Let’s
also take firm-specific traits into consideration Get Digital,” 2009). While hotels may be con-
when deciding which SM to use. cerned about the increase in cost if more SM
campaigns/contests are to be run, the company
Ensuring Sustained Social Media could consider launching an online loyalty pro-
Marketing Efforts gram. This idea is similar to the loyalty program
that hotels run in the real life, except that the
To ensure that the company’s SMM efforts way for customers to get points can be changed.
are sustained over time, hotels should consider For instance, customers who win or participate
the amount of resources available for the com- in the campaigns could get points. Of course,
pany to do SMM in long run and decide the the rules and the requirements for winning the
optimal number of SM sites that the company contests should be well-explained and justified
could have a presence. For SM sites that the so that customers feel that it is worth join-
company is unable to sustain its presence, they ing the program. Besides, hotels could make
should avoid entering these SM platforms in use of this opportunity to do market research.
the first place. Instead, they could consider using Altogether, this approach does not only increase
the free service AddThis. Since this service the participation rate, but also can help the com-
allows the company to add a mini tool on its pany save money as it does not have to give
out prize every time a campaign/research is this list in case they have to edit or add new
conducted. SM sites to the list. As compared to the current
Hotels could adopt more attractive designs approach in which companies place separate
that are interesting to use. For example, in lists of hyperlinks in different sites, the staff
Mandarin Oriental Hotels’ corporate Facebook would be editing only one list in the suggested
page, the company uses a world map with approach. This allows the company to update
spots representing the Mandarin Oriental hotels the list more efficiently and avoid the situation
worldwide. When the customers bring over the that some of the hyperlink lists have been left
mouse on the spots, it shows the hyperlink(s) out for update.
to the property’s website and/or SM sites. This
innovative design is not only aesthetically pleas-
ing, but also increases the chance that customers LIMITATIONS AND
use the hyperlinks to access the websites/other RECOMMENDATIONS

SM sites held by the company.
FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
Ensuring Easy Access to the Hotel’s There are several limitations in this study.
Social Media Page Firstly, only 67 hotels were selected as the
sample. In this respect, the results may not
The company can ensure easy access to the be representative of the entire hotel industry
hotel’s official SM page in two ways. Firstly, in Hong Kong. Future research should adopt
the companies should have the proper account a larger sample so as to gain a more com-
setting; i.e., have their SM sites open to public. prehensive view of the hotels’ SMM perfor-
Secondly, companies should provide a hyperlink mance. Generalization is another concern as
list that is user-friendly, complete, and up-to- the study identified major problems in hotels’
date. Besides, they could consider adopting the implementation of SMM. Secondly, this is a
following practice, which combines the three cross-sectional study which can only assess the
approaches that hotels used to present their hotels’ SMM performance at a specific point of
hyperlinks as reported in the previous sections. time. Given the dynamic feature of the SM, this
First, the company can have a dedicated hyper- research is unable to capture the hotels’ SMM
link page on the company website. To make the efforts after the data is collected. In this respect,
list comprehensive but, at the same time, clear a longitudinal study should be conducted to
and simple to read, the company should group access the hotels’ SMM performance over a
these hyperlinks according to three business period of time. Alternatively, researchers could
levels—corporate, brand, and property. Then, also replicate this study and compare the hotels’
the company can display hyperlinks to the cor- performance with the results of this research to
porate and brand’s SM sites under their respec- examine if the companies improve their SMM
tive headings. For hyperlinks to the properties’ efforts over time. Another limitation is related
SM sites, they should be shown to the guests to the data collection. The data in this study
only when the guests click on the brand’s name. was obtained through manual research. While
With this comprehensive list, the company could the official and unofficial SMM efforts could be
then place a highly visible icon on each of the easily distinguished in most cases, future stud-
SM sites where the company is present. When ies should seek the companies’ verification to
customers click on this icon on the SM sites, enhance the accuracy of the research results.
they will be directed to this dedicated SM list Finally, future research regarding SMM should
placed in the company website. In this way, the be conducted from the industry’s perspective.
company could ensure that every SMM effort In addition, there is lack of research to exam-
is communicated to the guests whichever SM ine whether SMM could actually bring financial
sites they visit. Additionally, the company could returns that could justify the resources compa-
allow the brand and property delegates to access nies spent on SMM.
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Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing

Investigation of Social Media Marketing: How Does the

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INVESTIGATION OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Basak Denizci Guillet

KEYWORDS. Social media marketing, hotels, Hong Kong

INTRODUCTION to communicate with the customers, namely the

Kong hotel industry. Specific objectives are as Types of Social Media

TABLE 1. List of Hotels Included in the Study

Property-level Brand-level Corporate-level

Property-level Brand-level Corporate-level

TABLE 2. Social Media Sites Evaluated

SM sites evaluated References

of hotels responded to customer reviews on to communicate with (potential) internal cus-

TABLE 3. Evaluation Criteria Grouped Under Unfortunately, some hotels overadvertised on

Security feature & privacy statements

TABLE 4. Social Media Marketing Performance Under Five

TABLE 5. Hotels’ Major Problems in Doing Social Media Marketing

Problems Breakdown of the problems

accessing hotels’ for accessing

ness or how much resources they should invest

and ending when responding to a customer’s CONCLUSION

use the hyperlinks to access the websites/other RECOMMENDATIONS

REFERENCES Hong Kong Tourism Board. (2009). A statistical review

Issue, p. 75. Business Horizons, 52(6), 563–572.

Retrieved March 15, 2011, from http://findarticles.com/ 31(2), 179–188.

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