We spoke at Hotel Operations Summit India 2016 (HOSI 2016). Pradeep Chopra, CEO & Co-Founder, Digital Vidya was one of the key speakers at this event.
This is probably the most glaring example of how an effective digital marketing campaign can dramatically push the business the business to a soaring trajectory. Airbnb, the US-headquartered alternative accommodation major which has significantly spread its wing across the globe in the recent years, saw a tremendous surge in the traffic on its platform after it released a series of engaging video content on youtube platform. “Its video content had generated 450,000 views in four months and there was an increase of 120 percent in branded searches on its platform. It eventually helped in the bookings volume going up from 8 lakh to 2 million nights” said Pradeep Chopra, CO-Founder & CEO, Digital Vidya who addressed a workshop on digital marketing at HOSI convention yesterday.
Airbnb after releasing its video content on YouTube had seen a staggering 120% jump in traffic.
At a time when hotel industry is looking at effective strategy to combat the online onslaught from the outside operators, Chopra strongly underlined that like other business streams, the hospitality industry too needs to have a holistic digital marketing strategy and there are plenty of options available in the marketplace. “We are living in an age where 90 percent of the buyers trust peer recommendations. Facebook’s subscribers volume is more than the population of China and LinkedIn is adding two new members every second. In such an environment, it is imperative that the hospitality industry should also embrace the 4Cs of digital marketing- creating, curating, connecting, and culture. Internet and mobile offer various options to reach out to the larger customer base and engage them,” Chopra emphasised.
Hospitality players in India can make use of social media influencers to create right kind of buzz on their products.
According to Chopra, SEM and SEOs on Google platform are equally vibrant mediums to catch the attention of the customers in the social media sphere. “Search marketing is one of the most powerful digital marketing medium and can be effectively used in the hospitality business as well,” said Chopra. With mobile and smartphones becoming the most important device, Chopra also pointed out at the options available for marketing. “Over 50 percent of searches on Google is now coming through mobile. That makes it imperative for the enterprises trying to derive advantage out of it to adopt a responsive design of their content. For instance, their websites and even e-mail designs should be mobile compatible,” suggested Chopra. The unfolding revolution in the sphere of mobile applications could be another vibrant promotional platform for the hotel companies. “App based promotion is a growing segment. It certainly helps in generating more leads and is a potent tool for new customer acquisition” underlined Chopra.
Chopra also dispelled the apprehension that getting aggressive in the digital space could result in your competition keeping a tab on your every move. “Things have gone much beyond that. When Burger King launched whopper burger, it first restored to its online booking on e-bay. The response was tremendous,” Chopra pointed out. He also had a specific word of advice for the representatives of Indian Hospitality- make effective use of active influencers on twitters and other social media platforms in creating right kind of buzz on their product.
As published in Tourism First on 5th April 2016
