Digital Marketing Strategies for Marriott Hotel

This document provides an in-depth analysis of the digital marketing strategies used by Marriott Hotel. It covers the environmental analysis, SWOT and PESTLE analysis, key digital tools and platforms, and marketing plans for organizing digital marketing activities. The document also explores the methods of measuring and monitoring digital marketing efforts. The content is relevant for students studying marketing or hospitality management.

Brief

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
LO1..................................................................................................................................................1
Task 1- Environmental analysis for Marriott Hotel-...................................................................1
LO2..................................................................................................................................................5
Task 2 Key digital tool, platform and channels-.........................................................................5
LO3..................................................................................................................................................6
Task 3 Marketing plans for organizing digital marketing-.........................................................6
LO4..................................................................................................................................................9
Task 4 Methods of measuring and monitoring digital marketing-..............................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFRENCES.................................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Digital Marketing can be defined as tool of promotion and advertising of products and
services using technologies on internet by mobile phone application, displaying advertising and
any other devices(Kingsnorth, 2019). This is hugely helpful companies to expand and promote
themselves at the platform effectively. This is such great techniques which helps in generating
profit and further enhance their sales and revenues.
Marriott Hotel is the American multinational hospitality organization. It is founded by the
J. Willard Marriott in 1927. had its hotels and resort all over the world and situated at 6,906
locations (Zhu and Gao, 2019). The revenue of hotel are $20.75 billion which state that they are
performing great in the industry. Study includes SWOT which are being meet by the company in
the industry. Examining the digital tool, channels and platform that can be utilized by several
hospitality companies to enhance their sales and revenue further. Report further carried forward
with marketing plan which is helpful for hotel to organize digital marketing activities throughout
their businesses.
MAIN BODY
LO1
Environmental analysis
SWOT Analysis:
SWOT Analysis can be described as method through which internal position of company
can be analyses properly. (Hanlon, 2019). It is technique for assessing competition,
performance, risk and potential of the business along with part of business that is division or
product line, other entity or an industry.
Strength-
Marriott Hotel is the leading hotel globally. They render a satisfactory service to their
consumer through which they had gain consumer loyalty base further. It is the largest chain of
hotel which is implied with strict adherence to the operational norm. Company is having huge
retention of employees with more than 150,000 workforce working with them(Ingle, Desai and
Kale, 2020). They have 3700 resorts and hotels in more than 70 countries. They have been
focusing on innovation into their business activities. Hotel had maintained the ubiquitous
luxurious brand of their company.
Weaknesses-
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The huge number of hotels and global expansion bound them to maintain the standard of
their services across all of its businesses. Company is facing huge debt due to their stabling
position of financial issue. Marriott Hotel is facing lot of backwardness in infrastructure across
the management of information and technology(Järvinen, 2016). They are facing several
controversies into the business activities one of the recent is blockage of individual Wi-Fi of
their consumer stating privacy risk to them. That had negative impact on the brand image of the
hotel. It is family business and deeply based on the value of family and thus it can't be changed.
Opportunities-
Marriott Hotel had an opportunity to expand themselves into the market of China through
the partnership of Alibaba. They also had advantage to enhance the international travel among
the tourism so that more and more consumer can be attracted. Individual are travelling more for
both pleasure and work and thus Marriott Hotel can use its resources well. They can also work
for the innovation into the consumer service(Çınar and Weiss, 2019). By having an amazing
interior and renovation into their properties helps them to attract wide range of customers to the
hotel. Thus, they can also further expand to the other emerging country as well so that they can
have growth opportunities.
Threat-
Company is facing competition on the price point. As there are large number of hotels
available at various areas across world so high rate of the substitution that are available to the
consumers(Desai, 2019). The major fluctuation in pricing has been founded in marketplace due
to intense and high competition because of foreign operating hotel. The several policies on
immigration and the tariffs is the biggest threat to the all over hospitality sector and thus Marriott
is significantly affected through this.
Challenges-
The company is facing huge challenges from its rivals present in the marketplace. They
are also facing challenges from several new entrants into the international market which had
impacted the business activities of the Marriott Hotel (Helsen, 2019).
Impact-
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This had impacted Marriott Hotel as whole and that how they will be furthered competing
in market among their rivals. It also states that company is gaining its overall goal and objective
or not and if they are lacking somewhere they can improve it. By converting weaknesses into
strength (Teixeira, Barbosa and Pinto, 2019).
PESTLE Analysis:
The PESTEL Analysis is tool or framework which is used in order to measure external
position of firm in market (Fierro, Gavilanez and Arbelaez, 2017). This technique and tool is
very useful for businesses while expanding themselves into the global marketplace. It can state
below-
Political Factors-
The travel ban and the anti immigrant statement by the government had an impact on
overall hospitality sector as well as Marriott Hotel. Thus, this bounds the business of company
they can not have their business operation there and further the expanded wall with the Mexican
border also had affected Marriott Hotel significantly(Kingsnorth, 2019). The situation of Brexit
also had an huge impact on the company their consumer and sales have been affected to the great
extent. The political situations of each and every country are different and thus they had to
comply with all such while conducting their business operation, and they are having their
business operation across these countries. Terrorism among several countries had also affected
business of hotel due to several political decision upon it.
Economic Factors-
As per the situation of Brexit into marketplace had and huge impact on the consumer and
business significantly. As decline in currency the purchasing power of the consumer had been
fallen down due to the situation of recession into the marketplace. Marriott hotel business will be
affected to the great extent as the visit of the consumer to the hotel and resort will decline. The
high exchange rate in the marketplace also affected business greatly(Hanlon, 2019). Economic
turmoil into the Europe that is debt crisis impact the individual's travel which had resulted into
decline. The Marriott hotels aims for rendering the Premium & Luxury services to the consumers
thus further they could face decline into the revenue due to the economic slowdown into the
marketplace.
Social Factors-
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Nowadays consumer are more spending into the travel and tourism across the world.
They are travelling from one country for having pleasure or due to work. So this social trend had
created an opportunity for Marriott Hotel to enhance their business operation and activities and
enhancing their sale. The hospitality industry is more competitive industry and thus Marriott
Hotel is facing intense competition from many such and it is essential to render top class and
timely service to their guests(Çınar and Weiss, 2019). And now consumer need to be associated
with the brand so Marriott had its more than 70% of the rooms are associated with brand. It is
very essential for having various type of hotels that aims for fulfilling needs of various
individuals. So they had classified their hotels into three major categories that is: Luxury,
Premium and Select. For retaining consumer for long term and attracting wide range of
consumer they had also launched loyalty program which is named as “Marriott Bonvoy” which
render their consumer with free stay into the hotel and additional discount to them as well.
Technological Factors-
The booking of hotels through third party enhances the overall costing and thus
profitability will decline. The new technologies are to be introduced by them to reduce their
operational cost and retention of consumer as well. These technologies will be helpful for them
to enhance their business operation and further they can easily compete with their rivals across
the marketplace (Fierro, Gavilanez and Arbelaez, 2017They can let their consumer to book their
rooms easily through their website and making payment through this. It will save the time of
consumer and thus further more and more consumer can be attracted to the company(Hardy,
Teixeira, Barbosa and Pinto, 2019They use SEO into their company so that they can place
themselves at top when and individual will be search for top hotels this is helpful for them in
enhancing their number of visitors to the hotel. The Marriott Hotel could have application
through which guest can accessed when they arrive hotel and so further they can easily operate
all the room and hotel facilities through this application they can hugely satisfy their consumer
and further attracted wide range of consumer to the hotel.
Legal Factors-
By following the legal laws and regulation they could easily achieve standardization. But
if to maintain this they could also face any legal compliance into their business operation. The
incident of Data Security that had taken place in November 2018 due to that Marriott hotel had
to face lawsuit. In that incident the personal information of their hotels over 380 million gust
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have been theft. The notice have been sent by IOC London and thus investigation has been done
on the hotel's privacy policy(Helsen, 2019). This led them to pay hefty penalties and fines for
such and thus they brand reputation of hotel has been decline. It has also had a negative impact
on its consumer as well. The increase in minimum wage had resulted into high cost of labour and
reduction in services thus the profit of Marriott hotel will significantly reduce.
Environmental Factors-
As nowadays consumer preference is enhancing and thus they are preferring sustainable
hospitality into the business. The Marriott claims that they are abided by various regulation and
laws related to environment in countries where it is operating its businesses. The major step
which have been taken by them towards sustainability is that they had reduced the use of plastic
straws into the hotel all over the world from July 2019(Fierro, Gavilanez and Arbelaez, 2017).
They aim to decrease the plastic straws into the business by 1 billion units.
Conclusion
It has been summarized that macro as well as micro environment have a great impact on
the operations of hotel Marriott. For example the major strength of this hotel is that the hotel
have expanded in wider geographies. Besides this various political, economical factors affects
the functioning of this hotel.
LO2
Key digital tool
There are many digital tools are used by several hospitality companies(Abraham, 2020).
These are helpful for them to grow and perform their business activities well. They can thus
further enhance huge consumer attraction toward hotel. Some are described below-
Basis Marriott Hotel Hotel Hilton Hotel Hyatt
Digital
Marketing
Tool
Marriott Hotel use Search
Engine Optimization
through which they can
put themselves at the top
of search. It will let
company to be on top as
when any of the individual
The Hotel Hilton uses
Email marketing tool
for promoting their
services and products
within consumer all over
the world. Through this
tool of marketing Hilton
Hotel Hyatt uses content
creation in order to
promote its products as
well as services. In this,
hotel mainly posts
various images, blogs for
attracting the customers.
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will search for the top
hotels in UK then this tool
will feature company on
the top thus the consumer
will review it. And so they
will select the hotel this
enhances sale of hotel
greatly(Järvinen, 2016).
This is very much helpful
for company to gain huge
attraction of consumer and
eventually their sales and
revenue will also enhance
to great extent.
Hotel can send offers,
discounts to their existing
and new consumer so
that the interested
individual who would opt
to have service with hotel
can avail that offers and
discounts further. They
can also let their
consumer to know about
new introduced services,
features and many more
through e-mails Desai,
2019). They let them to
be connected with their
existing consumer easily.
Hotel mainly put various
attractive infographics on
its page which explains
its products and services
Digital
Marketing
Platform
Facebook is most popular
website where millions of
people are connected with
each other. It is the biggest
platform that connects
wide range of individuals
and thus Marriott hotel
uses this platform for
promotions and
advertisement which is
helpful for them in gaining
interest of huge population
among their brand(). They
can effectively place offers
and packages to attract
Instagram is also an
amazing platform which
is helpful for many
business to gain their
objective effectively.
This allows Hilton Hotel
to post the amazing
picture, video, offers and
content which is helpful
in gaining interest of
individual towards hotel
and its servicesMore and
more attraction of
individual will be gain
towards the hotel through
Twitter is one of the most
important and significant
platform which is being
used by Hyatt for
advertising its products
and services. This hotel
mainly posts various
events, stories, products
for making customers
aware about its presence
and for increasing brand
awareness among them
(Ingle, Desai and Kale,
2020).
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peoples for enjoying
services of the hotel
greatly.
this and thus number of
visitors to the hotel could
be raised.
Digital
Marketing
Channel
The paid search have
been utilized by Marriott
hotel so that they can gain
huge interest of consumer
toward their hotel and
services(Desai, 2019).
This is very helpful for
company to gain revenues
and profit further. They are
paying some amount for
these searches and putting
themselves at the top when
an individual search them.
The Emails are used by
company for promoting
their services and
products across country.
Hilton Hotel could attract
their existing consumer
by email and keep in
touch with them. They
can also gain huge
consumer attraction for
their product and services
and let them to
enjoy(Desai, 2019). They
are not paid this can be
done without any charges
free of cost but it is time-
consuming.
The most effective
marketing channel used
by Hyatt for attracting
the customers and for
increasing customer
engagement is search
engine optimization.
Hyatt basically
frequently increase the
quality of its website in
order to appear first on
google when customers
type best hotel (Helsen,
2019).
Conclusion
These tools, channels and platform are very helpful for companies to market and promote
their product and services effectively into the market and gain huge consumer attraction towards
companies good. This is so much helpful in achieving their goal and objective in such a way that
they can gain huge profit.
LO3
Task 3 Marketing plans for organizing digital marketing-
Marketing Plan-
Objective:
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 To enhance sales by 40% within 8 months
 To open new branch in two new locations before 2021
Marketing Mix:
The marketing mix is foundation model for the business which revolve around the price,
product, place, price and promotion (Çınar and Weiss, 2019). It is the set of tool which is utilized
by company for gaining the objective among target marketplace. The marketing mix of Marriott
Hotel has been described below-
Product-
Core product of Marriott is there hotel and resort, better specified the rooms as well.
Marriott has various type of hotels and the resorts, along with that are operating under brands
that are- Marriott Hotels and Resorts, Renaissance Hotels, Fairfield Inn, JW Marriott Hotel and
Resort, Courtyard Residence Inn, Springhill Suites, TownePlace Suites and Marriott Vacations
Club etc., Each brand had their own theme or style (Helsen, 2019). All hotels brand had similar
concept but all these are specified to particular place and the target groups. The single concept is
followed by them, but they do it in several styles and for various individual. That's how they
attract wide range of consumer towards hotel. They aim at providing quality services to their
consumer. The let them to enjoy the services effectively.
Price-
Each brand of the Marriott has several pricing. As this has been done as each brand had
different peoples that are targeted by company. It can be stated that they can charge high right of
rooms form the business class people as the charges with room is to be paid by company because
they are working for them(Järvinen, 2016). So the pricing of hotel is not to be considered by
them. Along with the family people want to have low price for the hotel. The pricing for the
hotel also depends on the facilities' ans services which is delivered by the hotel Marriott to their
guest that can luxury hotel services will includes the high price charges to the guest. Thus,
pricing per services can vary from hotel to hotel but still they will need to maintain the minimum
pricing for their hotel.
Place-
Marriott Hotel has been established in wide range of countries that are UK, USA,
Argentina, Thailand etc., It is also situated in Netherlands and Amsterdam. These hotels and
resorts are located at various type of place(Hanlon, 2019). The hotel can be next to highway, in
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the centre of city and nearby airport. So this state that all type of people could be easily attracted
toward the hotel. The business people will require hotel nearby the airports and highways and
thus travellers as well. Hotels in the centre of city will be occupied by the individual travellers
who had come to visit the city. So the target group can be reduced by hotel on the basis of place.
Promotions-
There are lot of ways which can be utilized by hotel for promoting and advertising. The
most essential way for promoting brand through internet(Kingsnorth, 2019). By using the digital
marketing they can let their hotel to be effectively promoted and advertise through wide range of
individuals. Marriott Hotel can use various digital marketing tool for advertising so that they can
enhance their sale greatly. It is the most effective way for promotions. As wide range of public is
now using the internet mostly in their daily life so Marriott hotel could advertise their product
and service and attract visitors to their hotel so that their sale can be enhanced, and they can gain
their objective significantly (Fierro, Gavilanez and Arbelaez, 2017). They can also launch
campaigns so that interest of individual could be gain easily toward hotel. In summers, they had
introduced “Live it up” in which they offer their guest to stay weekend with hotel and pay with
their Visa card and getting $25 visa gift card for that. They can also attract new consumers by
placing banners on internet websites and folder at the Tourist Information Offices.
Budget-
Rent £6000
Preliminary expenses £30000
Salary £40000
Total £76000
STP-
Marriott would be utilizing the demographic segmentation for advertising & promoting
the products and service in the market. They could have huge options and for marketing they
could further use them greatly. Hotel is targeting age group of the 20-45 would be targeted by
company for the promotions and future sale(Helsen, 2019). All these criteria is useful in having
growth and successful implementation of the product in marketplace. Positioning of the brand
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would have done by several social media channel and supplier who would help company in
successfully placing the product in market. Further, Marriott could effectively enhance their sales
by promoting and advertising themselves effectively with the new and differentiated product
through digital marketing.
Monitoring and Controlling-
hotel would use KPI for that. This is known as the Key Performance Indicator. It is useful
for Marriott hotel to analyze whether they are performing good or not if not then it will further
could enhance the mechanism and strategies which would further helpful increasing their
revenue and profit(Ingle, Desai and Kale, 2020). It is useful for hotel to gain loyalty base for
customer and allow them to increase the number of visitors to hotel. The all operational and
marketing activities are being monitored and controlled by the manager through which they can
analyze whether they can are successfully attracting guest or not if no then strategies should be
modified further so that they can meet their goal.
Digital marketing activities
There are various digital marketing activities which the company will follow in order to
make its marketing campaign successful
Campaign
The hotel will seek the support of digital campaign to take their branding message to the
wider audience and thus will incorporate this in their marketing plan. Hotel Marriott will
organize a digital campaign which will incorporate all the aspects of the marketing and which
will help them to gain competitive advantage.
Email marketing
This is the another activity which will help Hotel Marriott to reach a wider population
and will also enable them to increase brand awareness among people. Through this email
marketing, hotel will send the personalized messages and mails to their target customers
regarding the launching of new product or service. Besides this, this will also help the hotel to
sustain its position in the market and gain a greater reputation in the eyes and hearts of
customers.
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LO4
monitoring marketing plan
Many monitoring techniques are here that may help in ensuring success of business, it can
be further estimated by the effective tools for measuring that how effectively company is
gaining their objective in such a way that their sales and revenues are enhancing (Çınar and
Weiss, 2019). Some of them are described below-
KPI-
Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is render focus creating valid decision and helpful in
focusing attention on what is mattering the most. It includes the setting of target that is the
desired level of the performance and process are being tracked against the target. And thus KPIs
are being managed through enhancing leading indicator which will later on helpful in managing
the outcomes(Ingle, Desai and Kale, 2020). It is the set of quantifiable measurement utilized for
gauging organization's overall long term performance. It is helpful in determining organization's
financial, strategic and operational achievement as compare to these businesses among similar
sector. KPI could be more anecdotal, employee retention, measuring the foot traffic into the
store, consumer experience quality among one another (). This could be utilized by Marriott
hotel to analyze whether they are performing well or not as the target are being set that the digital
marketing activities which are to be performed by them to enhance their promotional and
advertising activities. If the target are being meet then it can be set to as good KPI and thus
further company can achieve their overall target to attract wide range of visitors to the hotel.
Benchmarking-
The benchmarking is to define as procedure of measuring service, product and procedure
against the companies which are to be known as leader in one or many aspects of the operation.
It is helpful in rendering essential insight for helping them to understand how companies could
compare with competing companies, even if they had various business or having several group
of consumer Çınar and Weiss, 2019). Benchmarking is helpful for Marriott Hotel to identify their
system, area, processes for improving, or either continuous improvement into the business
processes. It can be classified into two main categories that is competitive and technical Thus,
Marriott Hotel could use the competitive benchmarking for analyzing whether they are doing
well or not. It can be analyzed by various factors that the digital marketing activities performed
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by hotel are helpful in attracting wide range of consumer to the hotel or not if not then they can
further enhance their activities to improve their professional data's.
Sales review-
It is also an effective method for measuring and monitoring the activities that how well
they are performing their business and operational activities. The sale of company is helpful in
analyzing whether they are gaining huge profit and revenue or not and if not then further
implementation must be done into the business activities (Teixeira, Barbosa and Pinto, 2019).
The Marriott Hotel could analyze and measure how much number of guest and visitor have been
arrived to the hotel and how much they had earned from them. If the number of visitors have
been raised then it can analyze that they are effectively working with digital marketing tool but if
they are not gaining huge consumer towards hotel then they need to improve their digital
marketing tool (Desai, 2019). The hotel can enhance their activities of promotion and advertising
activities so that they can gain huge loyalty base for their consumer. These activities are helpful
for gaining the overall objective of hotel so that they can gain effectively compete with their
rivals into the marketplace.
Conclusion
It can be summarized that there are various tools which can be used by hotel Marriott for
measuring the effectiveness of its products as well as services like benchmarking, sales review
etc. These tools basically helps to evaluate the current position of their products as well as
services in market and the perception of customers for their organization.
CONCLUSION
Study summarises as digital marketing plays an essential role in the growth and
development of company as whole. The various digital marketing tool can be utilized by hotel or
companies in generating sales. The more and more individual are using internet nowadays so it is
the most effective tool that can be used by Hotel to increment the visitors and guest. If the more a
more consumers are attracted to the hotel then the sale will enhance and thus there profit and
revenue will be enhanced significantly.. This is helpful for then in gaining their objective and
goals effectively. The company can sustain in market for long-term if they had this type of such
effective strategies with them. It can have huge impact on the growth and development of hotel.
It is widely used tool for gaining more and more interest of consumer to the product and services
as it is easily reachable to the large number of population.
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REFRENCES
Books and Journals
Çınar, K. and Weiss, D., 2019. 18 Digital Marketing and Virtual Tourism to Enhance Destination
Accessibility. Sustainable Destination Branding and Marketing. p.198.
Desai, M.V., 2019. Digital Marketing: A Review. Management, pp.196-200.
Fierro, I., Gavilanez, J. and Arbelaez, D.A.C., 2017. Digital marketing. Pensamiento & Gestión,
(43).
Hanlon, A., 2019. Digital Marketing: Strategic Planning & Integration. SAGE Publications
Limited.
Helsen, K., 2019. Digital marketing in the global marketplace: Latest developments.
Ingle, P.S., Desai, A. and Kale, R.D., 2020. Digital Marketing: An Overview. Our
Heritage. 68(30). pp.3645-3649.
Järvinen, J., 2016. The use of digital analytics for measuring and optimizing digital marketing
performance. Jyväskylä studies in business and economics. (170).
Kingsnorth, S., 2019. Digital marketing strategy: an integrated approach to online marketing.
Kogan Page Publishers.
Teixeira, S.F., Barbosa, B. and Pinto, H., 2019. How Do Entrepreneurs See Digital Marketing?:
Evidence From Portugal. In Entrepreneurial Orientation and Opportunities for Global
Economic Growth (pp. 1-19). IGI Global.
Zhu, G. and Gao, X., 2019. Precision retail marketing strategy based on digital marketing
model. Science Journal of Business and Management. 7(1). pp.33-37.
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