Report on Digital Marketing at Marriott Hotel

Running head: DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN OF MARRIOTT HOTEL
DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN OF MARRIOTT HOTEL
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN OF MARRIOTT HOTEL1
Table of Contents
1. Introduction........................................................................................................................2
2. Discussion..........................................................................................................................2
2.1. Task 1: Understanding the opportunities, challenges and impact of the digital
environment within the Hospitality Industry.........................................................................2
a) Environmental Analysis for Marriott Hotel digital presence...................................2
b) Challenges and impacts...........................................................................................4
2.2. Task 2: Examining the key digital tools, platforms and channels used by various
hospitality organisations.........................................................................................................5
Digital Tools, Platforms and Channels:.................................................................................6
2.3. Task 3: Ways of organising the digital marketing activities and building multi-channel
capabilities in hospitality organisation.......................................................................................8
a) Digital Marketing Activities for Marriott................................................................9
b) Development of multi-channel platforms and online interchanges.......................10
c) Planning of digital marketing campaigns-.............................................................11
d) Omni-channel marketing-......................................................................................11
2.4. Task 4: Evaluating the methods of monitoring and measuring the digital marketing
effectively.............................................................................................................................13
a) Monitoring and Measuring Techniques:................................................................13
b) Procedures used for measuring the digital campaigns...........................................14
c) Performance measures using the online metrics....................................................15
3. Conclusion........................................................................................................................15

DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN OF MARRIOTT HOTEL2
References:...............................................................................................................................17
1. Introduction
Being the head of digital marketing at Marriott Hotel, in the very first section of this
paper I shall be developing a report on digital marketing at Marriott Hotel. The key focus of
the report shall be on presenting an environmental analysis for the digital presence of
Marriott Hotel considering the challenges, opportunities and the likely impact of the digital
environment for the hotel industry. In the next section, I shall be providing a critical
assessment of the Marriott Hotel business by means of comparing and contracting its digital
presence. The third part of this report shall shed light on the plan for organising digital
marketing activities so as to support the initiatives of building multi-channel capabilities of
Marriott Hotel in the luxury business division and its activities seekers. Finally, I shall be
evaluating the different methods of monitoring and measuring the digital marketing of
Marriott Hotel in effective manner.
2. Discussion
2.1. Task 1: Understanding the opportunities, challenges
and impact of the digital environment within the
Hospitality Industry
a) Environmental Analysis for Marriott Hotel digital presence
 Opportunities:
a. Maximising the local SEO- SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) helps the customers
in searching for things online, local results (Aswani et al., 2018). For instance, if a
person own a hotel in New York and someone searcher for “Hotels in New York”,

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his or her hotel would be easier to find. For maximising the customer base, one can
use this to find a way for getting to the top of the listings. It would make the hotel
more visible to the potential customers and providing more brand awareness. Some
of the examples of local SEO opportunities include Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Google
My Business etc.
b. Having mobile friendly website- Mobile-friendly website is necessary for the growth
and development of hotel industry (Khraim, 2015). The modern customers are using
their smartphones to search a range of hotels at once and book their hotel stays.
Importance of accessible website through mobile phones is clear. The booking on
mobile devices have increased to 20% from 13% within a year, while PC bookings
have decreased to 85% from 92% (Wang et al., 2016)
c. Social media (organic and paid)- With more than 40 million of active social media
users in United Kingdom in the year 2017. They can help in building engagement
with the existing and the potential customers, creating brand awareness and targeting
new customers (Wongkoblap, Vadillo & Curcin, 2017). There are a myriad of social
media channels including Facebook, Twitter etc. that are really advantageous for the
business. With the help of the same, one can also monitor and respond to the
feedback from the guests, be it negative or positive, which is an important part of the
social media strategy.
d. Content- Content marketing is a vital part of marketing strategy of hotel (Siakalli,
Masouras & Papademetriou, 2017). It is all about the creation and sharing of the
online material like videos, social media and blogs that fail to promote the business
or the brand directly but is intended towards stimulating the interest in the products
or services.

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b) Challenges and impacts
a. The continuously changing demands of customers- The hospitality industry deals
with a range of people who are complicated in their own ways. Understanding these
customers is the key and better understanding of the customers is a major challenge
for the hospitality industry in these years and beyond (Chiu et al., 2014). Change in
the regulatory norms such as credit card fraud, data security, consumer protection
laws, compliance etc. is making it more difficult for the hotel organisations to adjust
on the basis of the norms and the demands.
b. Strong competition from wide range of hotel industry alternatives such as
Airbnb- As per the recent report from Hospitalitynet, the total valuation of the
Airbnb is more than 10 billion dollars, which is higher than many large hotel chains
of the world like Marriott or Hyatt (Oskam & Boswijk, 2016). The simple app has
influenced the hotel industry is a significant way as it provided the customers with
the units that are of similar rates like other hotel or even cheaper than them.
c. Ineffective and improper marketing- Being technology averse is one of the main
challenges for the hotel industry (Sam & Chatwin, 2016). It is the key to attain
competitive advantage over the other players. As technology continuous to influence
the daily human operations, hotels are forced to re-evaluate their marketing strategies
and efforts for attracting and capturing the growing online market. The recent trends
reveal that the businesses now need to start moving towards the online marketing as a
way for increasing the ROI.
d. Difficulties with energy management- Recently many of the hotels are going
smoke free and green. The planet is fighting against the global warming and other
climatic issues. Hence, there is great need for the hotels to start investing in
renewable and eco-friendly energy sources as the customers looking out for

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sustainable and green hotels. The modern customers are aiding positively towards the
initiatives on climate control and staying in green and eco-friendly hotels (Jeong et
al., 2014). The hotels that refuse taking sustainability seriously have been negatively
impacted as the entire profit margin has suffered.
e. Poor customer satisfaction- It is a major hotel industry challenge and is going to
be intensified in the coming years with the ever increasing competition and
introduction of better customer management tools (Teng & Chang, 2014). On one
hand the boutique and luxury hotels have managed to take the advantage of several
opportunities for the hospitality innovation ahead of them and on the other, the other
hotels are dealing with increasing pressure for being successful in the growing
market.
2.2. Task 2: Examining the key digital tools, platforms and
channels used by various hospitality organisations
Of all the sectors in the economy, there is no sector that is affected by the digital
trends as much as the hospitality industry. Majority of the customers in this industry are
tourists and social travellers who spend a lot of their time online for searching on places to
visit, hotels to stay in and restaurants to dine in (Filieri, Alguezaui & McLeay, 2015). This is
making the digital marketing the most viable way of attracting potential customers while
establishing a brand and developing groups of loyal customers. Millennial do not buy the old-
fashioned travel norms any more. They have become more spontaneous. According to the
recent data, about 49% of the millennial book trips at last minute and only 58% book for the
traditional lodging (Xie, 2017). More than 80% make use of social media for making
decisions and the user-generated content has the utmost influence. For this reason, majority
of the hotel organisations make use of varieties of online digital platforms to market and
promote their products and services. Hotels like Hilton are using “digital first approach”