Organising Digital Marketing Capabilities for Hilton Hotel

This report provides a comprehensive plan for organising the digital marketing capabilities of Hilton Hotel. It includes the hotel's mission, vision, and objectives, as well as a situational analysis using the SWOT analysis model. The report also outlines a digital marketing strategy and discusses the monitoring and controlling of the strategy. The aim of the plan is to build multi-channel capabilities for Hilton Hotel in its luxury business division and active holiday seekers.

Hospitality Digital Marketing

Table of Contents
Hospitality Digital Marketing..........................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
Opportunity, challenge and impact of digital environment.........................................................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................6
Critical Assessment of Hilton Hotel Business by its Digital Presence........................................6
TASK 3..........................................................................................................................................10
Plan for organising Digital Marketing Capabilities...................................................................10
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................13
Key Methods to evaluate, monitor and measure digital marketing effectiveness.....................13
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................15
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................17

INTRODUCTION
Digital marketing refers to marking efforts which are rendered through electronic devices
and internet. For the purpose of marketing and increasing visibility of its products and brands
companies exercise digital marketing in which companies leverage digital channels such as
search engine, social media, websites and email to connect with customers and prospective
customers. This report includes discussion over digital marketing plan of Hilton which a
hospitality company and serves its services worldwide. Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc., was
founded in 1919 and is headquartered at McLean, Virginia, United States was formerly known as
Hilton Hotels Corporation. This report for the purpose of discussing digital marketing includes
discussion over environment analysis for digital presence of Hilton which focuses on its
opportunity, challenges and the likely impact of digital environment for the industry. This
discussion is being followed by comparison of Hilton Hotel's digital presence with other
hospitality organisations. In this comparison includes comparison with Marriott International and
Hyatt Hotels Corporation. Report also includes a plan for organising digital marketing of the
hotel so that Hilton can build multi-channel capabilities in its luxury business division and its
active holiday seekers. Lastly report includes discussion over key methods which can be used to
evaluate, monitor and measure the effectiveness of digital marketing efforts.
TASK 1
Opportunity, challenge and impact of digital environment
Digital environment represent the electronic environment to communicate, interact and
conducting other operational functions with the use of electronic mode. Various aspects
comprises to form the digital environment that involve website, cloud servers, search engines,
social media, mobile apps, audio and video and many other internet or web based resources
(Wan, Chan and Huang, 2017). Al such resources comprises and form digital environment for
the corporate organizations. Digital environment has taken over the entire operational structure
of corporate houses but this also involve various challenges, opportunities and impacts over
corporate organizations.
Opportunities of Digital environment
Digital environment has provided various benefits to the business organizations that also
involve various opportunities.

Expansion of market: Digital environment has transformed the scale of business for all the
business houses. Internet became a huge mode of sales. All companies conduct trading
operations over internet with the use of various websites and other features that has expanded the
scale of business immensely for all the corporate houses (Mairinger, 2019). Hilton is one of the
leading brand in hospitality sector which became a major factor behind the success of marketing
campaigns run by marketing team of Hilton as its convenient to approach the customer's easily
by offering attractive offers. With the effective use of internet and marketing campaigns the
management of Hilton can expand the consumer base immensely. Today the world is witnessing
the immense improvement every year in number of mobile users that has expanded the business
opportunities for the big hospitality organizations like Hilton as the marketing team can easily
attract to travellers with effective marketing campaign over internet.
Strengthen the market connectivity: One of the major opportunities digital environment has
provided to hospitality corporates is to strengthen the connectivity with all the target customer's
across the world. Digital medium is an easy mode to reach the customer's as almost all the target
customer's for hospitality sector utilise mobiles and internet to analyse the affordability of
various hotels and its associated services so with the effective use of digital mediums the
management of Hilton can build the healthy consumer relationship that will also strengthen the
market connectivity of the Hilton group across the locations.
Improve market share: Digital environment has improved the business opportunities for all
hospitality organization as the management can attract the target customer's by giving attractive
offers, discounts and other facilities with the effective use of digital mediums. Currently the
Hilton is carrying the room share in hospitality sector across the globe is 5% that can be
improved with the effective use of digital mediums and with effective marketing campaigns.
Challenges of digital environment
Digital environment has improved the various challenges for the hospitality corporates
that also involve challenges such as.
Meeting customer expectations: Digital environment has transformed the business
environment in various ways that also involve availability of various options for the customer's
and that has created a huge challenge for hospitality corporates (DIMOVA and PROKOPOVA,
2019). Hospitality is one of the most competitive sector in the digital edge as all the
organizations try to attract customer's by giving attractive deals by channelising marketing

campaigns and in such an environment where customer carry the plenty of good options to meet
the customer expectations became a huge challenge for all the hospitality organizations.
Customer in today's business environment always look for the most affordable option and that
involve giving various services in the least prices and that also a huge challenge for all the
management of Hilton.
Finding Professionals to handle digital channels: In the age of digital environment its crucial
for all the corporate houses to utilise digital channels effective to meet the market presence
effectively. For effective utilization of marketing channels all hospitality organisations seek
effective and efficient professionals. To find the efficient professionals for maintaining the
various digital channels in hotel is also a challenge HRM of Hilton face.
Creative marketing campaigns: Digital environment has influenced the marketing aspects of
the corporate organizations immensely as all corporates organisations try to attract target
customer's with an effective and creative marketing campaigns and it also influences the
consumer decision making in hospitality sector. To mark the presence in front of the target
customer's and travellers is a big challenge for the marketing team of Hilton group with a
dynamic and new marketing campaign.
Improved competition: Digital environment has improved the market competition as all
competitors of Hilton group such as taj group and other try to attract the customer's over internet
by giving affordable offers that has immensely improved the market competition for the Hilton
group. Emergence of digital network has also provided scope to new entities in the hospitality
sector emerge in the market by giving attractive deals to customer's that has also improved the
market competition for the Hilton group.
Impact of digital environment
Digital environment has proved as a revolution for the business houses as it created
positive impact over many operations.
Improved Customer Relationship Management: Digital environment has served various ways
to the hospitality organisations such as social media, internet and websites to effectively build
the healthy relationship with customer's (Ziyadin and et.al., 2019). After the emergence of digital
environment to maintain the effective customer relationship management becomes vary
convenient and easy. All such ways provided by the digital environment has improved the
approaches for the management of Hilton group to connect easily with all the target customer's.

Improved customer experience: Apart from various impacts from the digital emergence in
hospitality organizations it has also improved the customer experience from the hospitality
services. Today customer can easily convey about the hotel experience and that also involve the
negative aspect of the experience (Verhoef and Bijmolt, 2019). By taking various actions to
remove such negative aspect from the hospitality services the hotel management try to improve
the customer service experience that also enable the management of hotel to improve the brand
image in the market.
Improved revenues: After the emergence of digital environment the revenue of Hilton hotel
group has improved as the management can easily reach to target customer's with the use of
digital channels. Digital environment has also provided convenience to the hospitality
management to keep in touch easily with all the previous customer's that has enabled the
management to build the healthy customer relationship that also supported the management to
sustain the customer's for the long time.
TASK 2
Critical Assessment of Hilton Hotel Business by its Digital Presence
Basis of Comparison Hilton Hotel Marriott Internation
Digital Tools Digital Tools used for
marketing by Hilton hotel are:
Organic Social Media Tools-
This refers to creation of pages
and links on the social media
sites which are not paid and
companies can market its
brands through these pages
and these are also used to give
useful information to
customers about offering of
company (Leung and Mo,
2019). Hilton Hotels use this
Digital Tools which are used
by Marriott are:
Paid Social Media Tools-
Companies when increase
visibility of its brands through
paid social media which refers
to paying other pages and links
which have higher number of
followers and have more
traffic on their pages and links.
This increase visibility of the
company's brands and people
who are not aware with one

tool and have its links on
various social media sites.
These are also helpful in
knowing what is customers
orientation for a brand through
the attention they pay to pages
and information by the
company.
Email Marketing Tools-
This is one of the best tool to
use for Digital Marketing
which is sending information
through Email. This is most
effective tool in terms of ROI.
brand also get to know about
that through the pages they are
active on (Taiminen, 2016).
This is better than organic
social media as this increase
scope of marketing activities
and gives information to those
which would not have been
possible otherwise.
Video Hosting Sites-
In this tool companies can use
this to create and publish
videos so that companies can
increase its visibility through
those people who are active on
video hosting sites.
Platforms Digital platforms which are
used by Hilton Hotel are:
Facebook- Facebook is a
leading social media site
which is being used by Hilton
Hotel for digital marketing.
Facebook in one of the most
effective platform where
companies can market its
brands. This provide various
options which are used by
Hilton Hotel for digital
marketing (Copulsky, 2019).
Through Facebook Hilton
Hotel have managed to
Digital Platforms which are
used by Marriott Internation
are:
Instagram- This is a Social
media site which is used by
Marriott International to
market its brands. In this
platform Marriott International
can market its products
through influencing and
attracting its target market
towards itself. This also
provides opportunity for
organic and paid marketing.
Instagram is also widely used

increase its visibility. This can
help in finding target market.
Facebook is also constantly
working to improve its user
experience which have made
Facebook a preferred choice
for marketing. Marketing
through Facebook is effective
and along with that it is cost
effective as well and it also
attracts customer attention for
the content which is not
possible otherwise.
Websites- this is another
effective platform for digital
marketing. Hilton Hotel use its
own website to market its
brands. Whenever customers
and users open website they
get to see something which
company is offering and
through this company can
market its brands.
social media site which is an
additional benefit for Marriott
International.
Video Hosting Sites-
YouTube which is a video
hosting and sharing site is one
of the most effective platform
where Marriott international
market its products (Jain and
Schultz, 2019). There are
various ways in which
company market itself.
Company creates video
advertisement which appear
before starting videos one
significant benefit of this is
that company can find out
target customers and audience
which is watching
advertisement is not bound to
watch the video.
Channels There are various digital
channels which companies can
use and all of them have their
own pros and cons.
Considering these channels for
digital marketing which have
been chosen by Hilton Hotel
Digital channels which are
used by Marriott International
are:
Social Media Marketing-
Marriott International have its
presence on various social
media sites which are presently
most effective channel of

are:
Websites and Blogs- these are
most effective channel for
digital marketing are being
used by many companies
including Hilton Hotel (Key,
2017). Websites of the
company answers various
questions of the customers and
prospective customers. Present
customers when care about
brand of Hilton Hotel they
visit website to get updates and
new offerings of the brands.
This also provide customers
news and insights about the
brand. In this channel entry
barriers are very low and does
not require IT skills. Cons of
this type of channel is that
creating content which is
relevant is challenging and
sometimes time consuming as
well. But Hilton is a big
organisation which does not
consider this as a problem.
digital marketing and provides
the highest customers and
potential customer attention
for the services and brands of
the Marriott International (de
Ruyter, Keeling and Ngo,
2018). Social media provides
opportunity for both organic
and paid marketing in which
one type of marketing is good
and favourable for budget and
cost and other type of
marketing is good and
favourable for increasing
visibility of the product
through other users of social
media.
Mobile Marketing- With
increasing number of people
who are using mobile this
channel of digital marketing is
getting more and more
effective. In this channel
Marriott International design
advertisements as per mobile
audience which considers use
of mobile apps, email
marketing and GPS frequency.
This speed up sales of the
services of the hotel as users
get to see the content without

any effort.
TASK 3
Plan for organising Digital Marketing Capabilities
Executive summary
This plan includes organisation of digital marketing activities of Hilton Hotel this plan includes
Hotel's Mission, Vision, Objectives, situational analysis using SWOT analysis model, digital
marketing strategy and monitoring and controlling of Digital marketing strategy. Digital
marketing activities by Hilton Hotel aims at building multi-channel capabilities of hotel in luxury
business division and its active holiday seekers.
Mission- Hilton Hotel provides world class and luxury hospitality services to people worldwide
through its hotels and brands.
Vision- To increase awareness of people about the services that are being provided by the Hilton
Hotel so that most people who are searching for luxury stay and holiday can come to Hilton
Hotel.
Objectives-
 To increase visibility of the company and all its brand by 30%.
 To increase market share of the company worldwide by 20%.
 To improve financial and non financial performance of its luxury business division by
30% by the end of the year.
 To increase sells of its holiday services by 20% by end of the year.
Situational analysis- (SWOT) Strength-
Brand Acknowledgement- Hilton hotel's worldwide presence have created high brand
acknowledgement. This global presence of the brand have created positive perception in the
minds of the customers.

Effective Customer Retention Scheme- Hilton hotel have some effective schemes which work
best for customer retention and adds to the value of customer loyalty.
Strong Property Portfolio- property portfolio of Hilton hotel is quite strong which add to its
brand value.
High level of customization achieved through technological advancement- Hilton hotel have high
level of customization which allows them to offer services to customers which they desire for
and not what they can give to customers.
Effective Provider's Relationship- Hilton Hotel maintains high customer relationship and in this
hotel maintains record of the preferences of the customers and every time a customer visit hotel
they provide same set of services to the respected customer (Culley and et.al., 2017). This have
established a strong bond of customer with the hotel group.
High Employee Retention- Employee retention of the organisation is very high which contributes
to its success and because of that employee turnover also reduces lowering its cost. Weakness-
Higher Dependency of the Proprietors- Hilton is dependent on other inn proprietors
organizations since it doesn’t claim the greater part of its lodging networks.
Little Global Market Share- Despite its large portfolio of brands its global market share is little
(Laakso, 2017). This require the brand and organisation to heavily depend on the US market for
its revenue and profits.
Lack of Flexibility- Hilton hotel is very large and because of that it is less flexible. Opportunity-
High Potential in emerging market- Hilton hotel have high potential in emerging market which is
a good opportunity that organisation can grab and utilize and use for increasing its global share.
Formation of Strategic Alliances- this is a good opportunity Hilton Hotel can form strategic
alliances and use these alliances for increasing its market share.
Innovative Customer Services- Due to increasing competitiveness all the competitors of Hilton
Hotel are providing services to its customers which are unique and innovative (Kiraidt and
Novik, 2018). In such situation Hilton Hotel can also give innovative services to its customers
which will increase its market share.
 Threats-
Competition on price point.

Stagnated growth.
Adverse changes in macroeconomic climate.
Loss of key talent and key personnel.
Marketing strategy-
Product- Product refers to the offering of the organisation Hilton Hotel provides hospitality
services to its customers. Hilton Hotel provides services on hospitality in various forms. In this
contribution of digital marketing activities is that products of the company which customers have
to experience once they are at physical location of the hotel but it can avail its bookings online.
In this form it will be easy for customers to use its services and will multichannel its capabilities
in luxury business division and active holiday seekers (Desai, 2019). This is because bookings
which are done at one place will than e distributed according to area and services which are
booked by customers.
Price- Hilton Hotel Provides luxury hospitality services for which customers have to pay high
prices.
Place- in context with place services of the company are available at its properties which are
located worldwide. Booking for its services is available online which customers can use.
Promotion- In this presently Hilton is using various type of marketing tools and channels and to
build its multi-channel marketing capabilities Hilton can use various other tools such as Email,
better use of social media and Mobile. Hilton needs to use all this services in customized form so
that the content and message reaches to those who are target audience of the Hilton. This will be
more effective just as customized customer service of Hilton (Fahad and Tran, 2019). Content
which is communicated through digital marketing platforms should be short, impactful, Unique
and Animated which is effective and attractive for customers and potential customers.
Financial Planning-

STP
 Segmentation
Budget, Mid-Market, Upscale and Luxury.
 Targeting
Leisure travellers, honeymooners, corporates, families, extended stay.
 Positioning
Prime location and luxury living.
TASK 4
Key Methods to evaluate, monitor and measure digital marketing effectiveness
Digital marketing which is marketing function of promotion which refers to communicating
promotional messages through digital media and digital platforms like mobile, internet, social
media etc. These are just a form of marketing for which Hilton Hotel invest huge amount of
money and efforts and this is why it is very important for the hotel to evaluate, monitor and
measure effectiveness of digital marketing (Isohella and et.al., 2017). 1 billion audience on its
website and 250 million followers on social media of Hilton communicate its successful efforts
for its digital marketing. To evaluate, monitor and measure effectiveness of digital marketing key
methods that Hilton uses and can use are as follows-
Return on Investment
All the money that company invest in any activity have only one main objective which is to get
highest possible return on the investment. This is not just a concept but a method which company
can use for evaluating and measuring effectiveness of its digital marketing activities. Through

this method Hilton will be able to know whether the new leads which have gained through social
media have generated new sales or have lead to new sales.
For investments ROI is a key performance indicator and as KPI it helps to attribute increased
sales to digital marketing efforts (King, 2018). In such case if ROI indicates there is a correlation
of new sales and to online marketing efforts it can be considered that efforts for digital marketing
are paying off.
To calculate ROI of digital marketing total revenue which is realized from digital marketing and
divide this revenue with total cost of digital marketing efforts. The result will indicate rate of
return on investments.
Conversion Rate
This is another KPI which can be used to evaluate and measure effectiveness of digital marketing
activities. Indicator of the percentage of people completing the desired action on a digital
advertisement or call to action is conversion rate. Tracking conversion rate helps to understand
the performance of digital marketing campaign. Users when complete an action in the marketing
campaign it is an indicator of the success of the digital marketing and allows Hilton to know how
effective its digital marketing efforts are. This works in such forms like how well display
advertisement is working.
This also contributes to monitor the efforts as if company's advertisement gets thousands of visit
but those who are completing the actions are 10 than there is some issue with the advertisement.
This is an indicator and using this Hilton can take steps to mitigate obstacles which resist people
to take action and if advertisements are not effective than Hilton can increase its efforts and
improve the advertisement and check if the conversion rate goes up.
Along with monitoring and measuring conversion rate of its website Hilton should also monitor
and measure conversion rate of other mediums as well this includes conversion rate of social
media visits and other digital mediums as well where company is actively making efforts for
marketing (Chui, 2018). Only by monitoring and measuring conversion rate across all digital
marketing mediums Hilton can tweak each effort to get desired results which lead to increase in
sales.
New Sessions
It refers to tracking new sessions on the website which is another metric that greatly impact
digital marketing campaign. There are platforms which allows and helps in tracking new session

like Google Analytics. This metric helps in knowing how well digital assets are doing in
retaining customers and attracting new customers.
This is an important KPI in digital marketing campaign as it gives insights about how well
advertisements on social media, email and search engines are able to attract new customers.
Along with new customers this also tracks retained customers and helps to get insights about
how well advertisements influenced customers who were targeted by the company.
Using information provided by this KPI company can restructure its website so that it fits the
behaviour of target customers which increase sales of the company.
Bounce Rate
This refers to percentage of the people who leave the website of Hilton before exploring other
areas of the site. High bounce rate are not favourable as this refers to customers and visitors not
spending enough time on the website to see all the efforts of the website of Hilton. This indicates
that even if website is getting hundreds of the visitors every hour but at the same time bounce
rate of the customers is also high which means that company is not making enough sales.
Measurement and monitoring of bounce rate is extremely important for knowing effectiveness of
the digital marketing activities (Marchand, Hennig-Thurau and Flemming, 2019). It contributes
in knowing which part of the website needs restructuring so that it is able to increase rate of
retention of the users and visitors.
Hilton can improve its content if the rate of bounce id high on the pages which have content on
it. Company can also find ways by working on which company can improve its bounce rate
which refers to reducing bounce rate and reducing bounce rate will increase sales rate of the
company.
CONCLUSION
On the basis of above discussion it is concluded that digital marketing which includes
marketing function which are completed through digital platforms. Report have included
discussion over opportunities, challenges and impact that digital marketing have on the
hospitality industry. When it comes to opportunities it can be concluded that digital marketing
helps to increase reach of the company to wider area and attract customers from different places
of the world. This is important as hospitality industry cannot serve its customers at all the places
and which is why it is important that customers are attracted to use services it provides. Later in

this report a comparison was included of Hilton Hotel and Marriott International both are
operating under hospitality industry and Marriott International is immediate competition of
Hilton Hotel. Later a digital marketing plan was included in the report which can support to
Hilton's initiative of building multi channel capabilities in its luxury business division and its
active holiday seekers. Lastly report included some key methods which Hilton can use to
evaluate, monitor and measure effectiveness of its digital marketing activities.

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Online
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