Digital Marketing Plan for Marriott Hotel: A Comprehensive Analysis

This report provides a detailed analysis of Marriott Hotel's digital marketing plan. It begins with an environmental analysis, examining opportunities like local SEO, mobile-friendly websites, social media, and content marketing, while also addressing challenges such as changing customer demands, competition from Airbnb, ineffective marketing, energy management issues, and poor customer satisfaction. The report then explores key digital tools, platforms, and channels used by Marriott and other hospitality organizations, including social media, influencer marketing, and customer apps. Furthermore, it outlines strategies for organizing digital marketing activities and building multi-channel capabilities, including digital marketing campaigns and omni-channel marketing approaches. Finally, the report evaluates methods for monitoring and measuring the effectiveness of digital marketing efforts, including monitoring techniques, procedures for measuring campaigns, and performance measures using online metrics, concluding with a comprehensive overview of Marriott's digital marketing landscape.

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

1DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN OF MARRIOTT HOTEL
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

2DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN OF MARRIOTT HOTEL
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”,
his or her hotel would be easier to find. For maximising the customer base, one can

3DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN OF MARRIOTT HOTEL
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.

4DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN OF MARRIOTT HOTEL
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

5DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN OF MARRIOTT HOTEL
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”

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while Marriott is continuously struggling to increase and connect with its brands online
(Hamed, 2017). They also help in boosting their online rates of booking. It has become an
indispensable part of marketing strategy for every hotel business in the contemporary period
of advanced technology as it is of immense importance for the success of every modern
hospitality organisation. Near about every hotel is investing a lot in the digital marketing so
as to gain competitive edge over their other competitors. Marriott Hotel is one of them. Some
examples of such platforms include Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Examples of digital
tools used by hotel industries include TripAdvisor, Yelp and Google My Business etc. (Baka,
2016) Digital channels are the interfaces that are connected to the global web through which
communication could be made. Many of the hotels make use of video marketing, mobile
marketing, SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and email marketing.
Digital Tools, Platforms and Channels:
a) Marriott has partnered with the Snapchat influencers for making “Snapisodes” that
mimic the travel documentaries of Television. Influencers in these Snapisodes showcase
the new and luxury properties of Marriott. It further reaches out to YouTube, Facebook
sharing and many other channels for capturing the attention of the other target
demographics of the hotel. The hotel has enjoyed high success in leveraging Snapchat to
engage the young customers.

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Figure 1: Snapisodes of Marriott “6 Days 7 Nights”.
b) It is to mention that the social media marketing strategy of Marriott is not like the other
hotels. The company created M Live, which is a command centre where the social media
experts effectively monitor the presence of the brand on different channels. When visitors
or guests post regarding an experience and they are at one of the properties of Marriott, M
Live staffer does something to make their stay special (Papetti, Christofle & Guerrier-
Buisine, 2018). For instance, he or she might get a poolside drink or a impromptu party in
the hotel’s lobby.
c) The smallest of the properties of Marriott has social media presence. Marriott has the
highest number of Fan posts in Facebook. Also, according to Luca (2015), the hotel has
the highest proportion of negative sentiments and is considered to be the largest Facebook
recruitment page as well. The hotel creates the most sharable contents by asking others
for submitting their contents.
d) Marriott has its own customer app to make the experiences of its customers hassle-free
(Mariani, Di Felice & Mura, 2016). With the help of this app, the rewards members are

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not required to check in and check out. They can go straight to their room and can open
the door using their smartphone. There is a geofencing feature in the app that the hotel
uses for interacting with the guests.
Figure 2: View of the customer application developed by Marriott
e) Marriott has Over 4, 52,000 subscribers in Instagram. There are many hotel chains like
Ritz Carlton, Accor etc. who use Instagram to promote their campaign and business.
Recent campaign of Marriott includes the @NewOrleansAdventure that reached
millennials and helped guests to discover the New Orleans.
f) It has over 186000 followers in Twitter. Like any other international hotel giants,
through twitter, Marriott listens to the customers through twitter feeds to join the social
conversation.
2.3. Task 3: Ways of organising the digital marketing activities and
building multi-channel capabilities in hospitality organisation
In contemporary era, digital marketing landscape has completely revolutionised all
the industries including hospitality industry. The marketing budgets are directed towards

9DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN OF MARRIOTT HOTEL
developing online presence of the business. Multi-channel strategy is highly beneficial for the
hotel industry players (Beritelli & Schegg, 2016). The channels over the passage of years
always had the power of transforming the markets and even down the economies. With the
help of new and advanced technology, hotels can reach maximum number of people through
the new channels and groups of people. Different channels also provide the hotel customers
the access to the hotels and this can notably influence the cost structure and revenues of a
company. According to Picot-Coupey et al. (2016), multi-channel strategy is directly related
to the customer experience. The customers experience is of a significant importance for a
hotel as if a hotel sees improvement in terms of customer experience, it would automatically
improve the profit potential and revenue of the company.
a) Digital Marketing Activities for Marriott
 Digital hardware landscape- Internet has become a platform where brands can both
crash and burn. Therefore, Marriott must also ensure monitoring its online reviews
(Carlson, O’Cass & Ahrholdt, 2015). It is to mention the aspect of reputation
management online reviews are very important. The fast-moving and diffused nature of
the digital hardware landscape calls for the companies to respond quickly to the poor
customer reviews and being aware of the sentiments of the guests all the times.
o The organisational leaders at Marriott must ensure that they are effectively managing
the Facebook posts and tweets in Twitter that show unclean accommodation and
rooms different from how they are actually advertised online, is done effectively as
such things can go viral in minutes and can destroy the brand’s reputation (Jang,
Chang & Chen, 2015).
o They must manage and reply to the online reviews on a daily basis for nipping the
bad reviews and avoiding the situations that are going out of control. There are a
myriad of social media channels including Facebook, Twitter etc. that are really

10DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN OF MARRIOTT HOTEL
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
o With the same, the company must be humble and thankful in its response to the
positive online reviews by thanking the customers for making the effort to boost the
brand.
o Staffs must be trained to speak on behalf of the hotel in online platform in a style and
voice that the brand wants to be known for. It is important to have enthusiastic
language in the Facebook posts and having short sentences in review responses.
b) Development of multi-channel platforms and online interchanges
To develop an effective multi-channel platform and ensure efficient online interchanges,
Marriott needs to first understand the target audience and build a user role or device type
matrix (Fatma, 2014). This matrix will help the company in understanding where to focus.
For example, an app can be created to offer core functions for the hotel. In this app, the
guests would be able to book rooms and order the room services during their stay and the
front desk would handle the check in and check out. While the housekeeping crew would
manage the daily room cleaning and kitchen would fulfil the room service orders. A sample
matrix for the mobile app is provided below:

11DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN OF MARRIOTT HOTEL
Figure 3: A sample matrix for the mobile app for Marriott
According to this matrix, the hotel must focus on building multi-channel interface for the
guests. The kitchen staffs are required to have some desktop pages in order to be effective.
c) Planning of digital marketing campaigns-
For the luxury business division, Marriot first need to market research and do competitor
analysis while identifying its objectives and goals. The main goals of the company are to
increase the business of its luxury business division. It can use some video and share them in
different social media platforms (Luturlean & Anggadwita, 2016). With the same, instagram
campaigns can be conducted to grab the ideas and views of the audience about the same so
that the company can gain an idea about the goods and the bad and the expectations of the
visitors or guests from the company for the very division.
d) Omni-channel marketing-
e. It can be used for ensuring consistency of customer of guest experience in every
aspects. Marriott can message its customers across the mobile and e-mail as two