When Hotels Chains use Twitter (part 1)

No. It's not going to be another article about the pros and cons of Twitter and how you should use it (or not) for your own business or your private life.

Instead, I thought I should give you some heads ups about what I have found so far in terms of hotel brands/chains who embrace the Twitter phenomenon and how each of these chains behave differently with their followers. Also what sort of messages "updates" do they write about about. Is there any interactivity between their followers and them.

For the study conducted, I selected only 15 hotel brands Twitter users but I could have picked some more. Sorry if I didn't select yours, it wasn't delibarate from me. I will follow up with another analysis about how independant hotels use Twitter.

The benchmark study was made with International hotel groups:

Starwood Hotels
Four Seasons
Hyatt
Ritz Carlton
Marriott Hotels
Millenium Hotels
Morgans Hotel Group

but also with hotel "representation" companies / franchisors:

Choice Hotels
Best Western
Luxe Worldwide
Design Hotels

and local hotel chains:

Tiara Hotels (Europe)
MacDonalds Hotels (UK)
Omni Hotels (USA)
Joie de Vivre Hotels (USA

First of all, let's look at what all of them do unanimously.

1. They all have customized their Twitter page to their branding image
2. They all have taken a Twitter account name with their brand name. Some of them I am sure I have been thinking hard about that... when they discovered their name was already taken. More and more we hear that domain squatters have also embraced Twitter as well. One advice, please check and register your brand name on Twitter RIGHT NOW before it's too late. It doesn't matter if you don't use Twitter after. At least you have protected your brand.
3. They all have given a go at "Tweets" meaning they have send Updates (some brands register and then only follow Twitter users)
4. They all have "Open" accounts where anyone can follow their Tweets
5. They all have filled details about their company, their location and more importantly their website URL (nothing beats free traffic)

Let's take a look at individual account now.

 
Starwood Hotels is a bit corporate on that one. They haven't got many updates yet but they have more than 2,000 followers and follow also a lot of users (1,664). All their brands logos are represented on their  page and to make sure consumer don't get duped by squatters, their inform on their bio "Official voice of Starwood Hotels". The account is a bit personnal since we know 2 people (Kevin and Ben) are behind the Tweets. Oh did I also mention that their Twitter name is not Starwood or Starwoodhotels? They preferred StarwoodBuzz. A bit more cool no?

Tiara Hotels, a Portuguese hotel group is very active on Twitter with almost 900 updates, more than 1,700 followers and an outstanding 1,515 Twitter accounts they follow. As you an see, the hotel group manages quite well the "RT" gimmich which is to repeat a Tweet (remember it means an update) that they found on another Twitter account. It is to say, I found this useful Tweet, let's share this with my audience in case they don't follow this user. Also you can clearly see that they interact with their audience. They even thank their 1,800 follower. I still don't understand how they can follow so many users though.

Four Seasons with their very simple page has opted for the "push" strategy in regards of using Twitter. What does that mean is that they only interested to push information to their 2,049 followers. Thet are not really interested to follow anybody (apart from the 5 other Four Seasons accounts created for individual hotels). They sent less than 400 updates and don't have a human person we can relate to if you want to respond to their Tweet.

Best Western, the "world's largest hotel chain" says their bio is taking a similar approach where they seem to follow a lot of their individual hotels Twitter accounts. They only have 677 followers with 139 updates. The best of it is their personnalized page. I really like it. You can see they put some good effort into this.

Design Hotels refer a lot on special deep links of their website if they have any special promo. I believe this is a good way to promote your offers instantly. They have 1,388 followers and follow a good number of peope (272 is a reasonable number to follow in my opinion). I just find their page a bit to dark for me to read. But who cares now? I use Seesmic Desktop !

Comments

[shubh]

Today no body can deny the utility of twitter in business expanding activities. Twitter can be used in any kind of business whether it is service oriented or product oriented. The main thing is to use the collected data for revenue generation that needs special marketing strategies. But the results of marketing through twitters are quick.

[Nuno Valinhas]

Hi Guillaume,

Thank you so much for refering Tiara Hotels & Resorts. It is trully great to see among so many good tweeps.

I'd start with our following number. The number was rapidly acheived in the early times of our twitter account, when my only goal was to spread the @TiaraHotels both twitter and name/brand through out the community.

I rapidly started to "clean" the list on a week basis. Recently more than 500 tweeps were removed from our following list.

It is hard to follow everyone, but we'll keep trying :)

Most of every travel tweeps are, in fact, worth following. That's a big "problem".

In my opinion, hotels that only use twitter with promotional intents, will not last too long. Our strategy is to, obviously promete our hotels, our offers, special dates, but as well as everything that happens in the city, region, and even country where we have properties. Besides being an option to everyone who looks for accommodation in those areas, we also provide valuable info.

We also think it's important to spread news about twitter (tools, aps, related sites, insights, statistics) as well as Hospitality or Tourism related.

Once again, thank you so much!

Regards

[Rob]

Resideo.com has been keeping a "Hotels on Twitter" list for quite some time now: http://resideohotels.blogspot.com/2009/07/hotels-using-twitter.html

[Perth Hotels]

I think hotels using twitter as means of communication is great, because they can say what they want to say to hundreds of people with just one twit.

[Brisbane Hotels]

I think twitter is one of the best tool of communication. You can say whatever you want to share w/ the public.

[Internet Marketing]

Internet marketing is indeed very different from traditional marketing. In the field of internet marketing the webmaster uses all possible means for promotion just from the comfort of his small office or his bedroom.

[Walt]

On the other hand, Twitter can also be harmful to a company's renown, as in the case of 0² UK: http://bit.ly/a0HQeM

You should have trustworthy persons doing this job thoroughly. If you do, you will benefit a lot from it.

[ClubPenguinCheats]

The main thing is to use the collected data for revenue generation that needs special marketing strategies. But the results of marketing through twitters are quick.

[jamescrobo]

Hi
'Hotel' word has a alot of competition in the market. acc to various people, twitter is the best way to communicate to other people just with in a single twit. so i am agree to all....

Thanks
James