Hospitality Industry: Social Media Analysis of Big Easy, London

This report delves into the hospitality industry, emphasizing the crucial role of social media in modern marketing strategies. It begins with an introduction to e-tourism and the impact of technology on the hospitality sector, followed by a literature review exploring the advantages of social media, including increased brand awareness, inbound traffic, improved search engine rankings, higher conversion rates, and enhanced customer satisfaction. The report then presents a case study analysis of Big Easy Canary Wharf in London, evaluating its current social media strategy and discussing important factors. A new social media strategy is proposed, and the report concludes with a summary of the findings and recommendations, along with references and an appendix. The analysis highlights the importance of adapting to technological advancements and leveraging social media for effective marketing in the hospitality industry.

Running head: HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY
Hospitality Industry: Big Easy Canary Wharf London
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note:

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Literature Review.......................................................................................................................3
Case Study Evaluation (Findings)..............................................................................................8
Discussion................................................................................................................................12
New Social Media Strategy......................................................................................................12
Conclusion................................................................................................................................15
References................................................................................................................................18
Appendix..................................................................................................................................23
Appendix A..........................................................................................................................23

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Introduction
Social media is the most important and significant part in technology. In today’s
world, social media has acquired the entire marketing strategy (Ye et al. 2014). Any industry
is marketing their products with the help of social media. Hospitality is one of such industries
that utilize social media for their marketing and the strategies utilized by them are widely
accepted by the customers (Murphy 2013). The travel technology is the application of
information and communications technology and information technology in the industries of
hospitality, travel and tourism. Travel means locomotion and thus travel technology is solely
associated with computer reservation system or CRS. One of the most important forms of this
travel technology is flight tracking (Pantano and Di Pietro 2013). Online flights could be
easily tracked with this technology and both the clients and the administrators can track the
flight details. Due to the enhancement of technology in the technological world, travel and
tourism industry has reached to extreme height. E tourism is one of the broadest concepts in
travel industry. It has transformed the entire of tourism globally. Information and
communications technology or ICT is responsible for this transformation (Ku and Chen
2015). The business strategies, the practices and the travel industry have changed structurally.
In the year 2000, emphasis was given on the development and growth of larger series of
services and instruments, which facilitate an interaction within the market leaders
internationally. The growth of all the transport capacities, network speed and searching
engines solely influence the total number of tourists in the entire world, which utilize
technology for the purpose of documentation and planning the journeys. It has been noticed
in a research that more 65% of the total bookings is done via Internet in all over the world
(Aitchison et al. 2014). In addition, the statistics of visiting to the travel agencies or travel
agents can gone down to almost 24%. The major reason of this lowering percentage is the

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time schedule. Clients or tourists have to visit to the travel agency or travel agent for booking
their trips. This often becomes a major issue, as time may not match with the travel agent
(Werthner et al. 2015). The majority of this society has accepted a fact, which influences the
growth of Internet on the behaviour of customers. This influence even manages the marketing
models throughout. E tourism has grown and gained success due to the enormous growth of
social media. The strategies that are taken for making E tourism successful are due to the
social media (Laroche, Habibi and Richard 2013). The advertisement is done properly and
the customers can easily know about the company without any complexity.
The following report outlines about a brief description on a popular restaurant of
London, namely, Big Easy (Varfolomeyev et al. 2013). This restaurant is located in Canary
Wharf, which is major district of central business that consists of a wide residential,
entertainment and commercial and also private estate in the Greater London (Kaján and
Saarinen 2013). Big Easy is considered as one of the most important and significant
restaurants in London that serves multi cuisine food to its customers. This report describes
about the hospitality business of Big Easy and provides relevant details (Dickinson et al.
2013). The report also evaluates the current social media strategy of this organization for
discussing the important factors. A social media strategy is also developed here. The report
further discusses about the literature review and detailed evaluation of the present social
media strategy.
Literature Review
According to Ye et al. 2014, the customer or the tourist appeals maximum on the sites
of the hospitality or touristic and travel information and even to those sites, that allows
bookings for the purpose of transport as well as accommodation services. Therefore, the
tourists will have various expectations from these website services. These expectations

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mainly include the security, the informational contents, the utilization facility, the utility and
even the rapidity within personalization and operations (Agarwal et al. 2013). The hotel
keepers always re evaluate these websites periodically for ensuring themselves that these
hotel keepers are extremely useful and efficient to their customers. Furthermore, various
studies imply that the design of any restaurant or hotel website usually leads to the profit or
loss of 50% sales. As per Andersson and Lundberg 2013, the most important area is to make
the information of any particular hospitality business more accessible on the Internet. The
websites of all the restaurants or hotels have acquired the strategy of social media and are
solely marketing their products and services by them.
Stylidis et al. 2014, state that mobile technology is the major and the most significant
part in social media strategy. The enhancement and advancement of mobile technology has
opened the doors of hospitality businesses. The hospitality industry should be aware of the
fact that any specific market segment that is formed of individuals with various types of
disabilities or elderly people is incrementing day by day. Therefore, the assistant technologies
act as the typical vocal browsers that offer the high degree of assistance to each and every
customer, who usually access their information online. According to Ekinci, Sirakaya-Turk
and Preciado 2013, the information related to demographic order or geographic location or
anything that is regarding to the life style is extremely important in creating stereotype for the
clients. If at any particular moment, it was taken into consideration that selecting a restaurant
or hotel depicted the common alternative of the senior people in a typical family; according
to current research, it has been revealed that the children or young adults in this process play
the most important role (Carlisle et al. 2013). Therefore, the managers of all hospitality
businesses who aim the young generation should offer, utilizing the means of online, a
content as sufficient as possible for these people, such as various interactive games for
attracting these types of people to visit their websites.

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In the present situation, the various electronic networks are broadly utilized for the
purpose of collaborations and communications within the organizations. Most recently, few
of the top technologies were solely recognized and they would have a vital effect on the
future hospitality industry. Coles, Fenclova and Dinan 2013, state that these particular
technologies majorly offer creativity and innovations about the connecting equipments as
well as the software, which allow all the companies a healthy communication between the
customers and the partners. These communications via the computer network enable the
partners in interacting in any suitable way about the cost and time. As per Croce and Perri
2017, the ontology, which depicts a specific series of various concepts in any domain and
also the relationships within all these concepts, enabled for constituting the mediation
systems, which become successful in translating this information to their partners and,
therefore, it solely helps to contribute for the efficiency of any electronic communications.
The typical multimedia technology became one of the major development domains and it also
influences the industry of hospitality. According to Moreno et al. 2013, the hospitality, as all
various activities in the field of tertiary sector, requires a widespread hold up by utilizing this
multimedia representation for the purpose of offering an image or any substantial experience
to the client.
Social media has several important advantages that has made it extremely popular and
accepted by all in the entire world. Social media helps to connect with the rest of the world
and thus, marketing could be done easily (Kaján and Saarinen 2013). Moreover, the cost or
expenses of social media is extremely low and can be afforded by all customers. The major
advantages of social media are as follows:
i) Increment of Brand Awareness: This is the most crucial or important advantage of
social media. Social media helps to provide cost efficient digital marketing methods for
syndicating the content and thus increasing the business visibility. According to Tuten and

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Solomon 2017, implementation of social media strategy in any hospitality business greatly
increments the brand recognition as it involves most of the customers. It has been noticed that
more than 50% of the total annual sales in hospitality business is due to social media
strategies. 91% of all of the marketers claim that the efforts on social media have solely
increased their exposure to the rest of the world. As per Stelzner 2014, this brand awareness
of any industry is very important for the small and medium hospitality industries, as it does
not require other types of awareness (See Appendix A).
ii) More Inbound Traffic: This is the second important advantage of social media.
When business is advertised on social media, the inbound traffic of the industry is increased.
According to Miller 2013, as the inbound traffic is increased, more customers or clients are
attracted to the business. This also increases the brand loyalty. It is nearly impossible to reach
out to the customers or clients if social media is not utilized by the hospitality business. There
is a marketing mix of several contents present on the website and it the most important
opportunity to acquire new customers in the business. As per Ashley and Tuten 2015, social
media is a specific melting point of various kinds of people with several types of behaviours
and backgrounds. These people have different taste and different thinking. Thus, it is the
amalgamation of various people and the way to get versatile group of customers.
iii) Improvised Search engine Rankings: The third important and the most significant
advantage of social media are the improvised search engine rankings. Kaur 2016, states that
most of the effort of any hospitality business is provided to the post for achieving success.
The search engine optimization is extremely important for achieving rankings of higher page
and thus obtaining inbound as well as outbound traffic in the website of the hospitality
business. According to Chaffey 2016, although social media never directly increment the
rankings of search engine, the Social Media Examiner mentions that over 58% of the total
marketers who had been utilizing social media for at least one year need to improve their

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rankings of search engine. Different types of contents like blogs, business information, case
studies, info graphics and many more help any particular hospitality business to grow or
develop their social media website. As per Vinerean et al. 2013, it even makes the profile of
social media more credible and intriguing.
iv) Higher Conversion Rates: The fourth advantage of social media marketing is high
conversion rates. With the increment of visibility, any business gains most of their
opportunities for the purpose of conversion. Every blog post, images, videos, or comments
would lead its viewers to the website of the company and thus increment their traffic. Scott
2015, states that social media marketing enables all the hospitality businesses in providing a
positive impression via the factor of humanization. When the brands are interactive with the
customers by simply sharing their contents, commenting, and even posting statuses on the
social media, it humanizes any brand. People usually prefer to do their business with any
other people, and not with companies. As per Hays, Page and Buhalis 2013, over 51% of
marketers have claimed that when excess time is taken for developing relationships with their
customers has always given positive result in sales. Moreover, this is one of the best ways for
increasing outbound marketing. When any particular brand is online and replies the queries of
their customers in a timely manner, customers follow the account of that brand and thus, the
credibility of the business is trusted.
v) Better Customer Satisfaction: Customer satisfaction is again one of the most
important advantages of social media strategy. In the hospitality businesses, customer
satisfaction is the first priority over all. As per Dahnil et al. 2014, if the customers will not be
satisfied with the products and services, it is needless to mention that the business will suffer
losses. Social media is a typical platform for communication and networking. These types of
platforms are nothing but a creation of a voice for the organization. According to
Constantinides 2014, customers solely appreciate after knowing that whenever they post

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comments on the particular pages of the organization, they would be getting a personalized
response and not an automatic message. Each and every customer interaction on the social
media accounts of the business is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate their concern for
the clients. As per Luo and Zhang 2013, a brand loyal to the customer satisfaction, which
takes time for composing personal messages, would intrinsically be viewed in positive light,
even when they are responding to the complaint of a customer.
vi) Cost Effective: The next advantage of social media is its cost effectiveness. It is
extremely cheap and can be easily afforded by all individuals. Felix, Rauschnabel and Hinsch
2017, state that marketing on social media is probably the most cost effective element of the
advertising strategy. Since, signing up and then creating any profile is completely free for
most of the platforms of social networking it can be termed a cost effective and cheaper.
According to Hudson and Thal 2013, social media strategy is the best way of marketing for
any small and medium business as it does not incur huge cost or complexity (See Appendix
A).
Case Study Evaluation (Findings)
Big Easy is a small and medium hospitality business situated in Canary Wharf,
London (Bigeasy.co.uk. 2018). Although, it is not considered as one of the best restaurants,
Big Easy do produces good quality of food to its customers. Apart from food, this restaurant
also provides various types of drinks (both alcoholic and non alcoholic) to their customers.
This restaurant started its journey in the year 1991 and is being considered as one of the best
restaurants that serve authentic bar b q and absolutely fresh seafood (Bigeasy.co.uk. 2018).
Moreover, this restaurant also arranges various types of entertainment for their customers
during the evening time (Bigeasy.co.uk. 2018). This is the simplest way of attracting more

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customers to the restaurant and the resultant is simple that the customers are attracted to this
restaurant.
Big Easy Canary Wharf has adopted the strategy of social media for their marketing
and interaction with customers (Bigeasy.co.uk. 2018). The location of this restaurant is in
Park Level, Cross rail Place, Canary Wharf London E14. This restaurant has account or
profile in every social media or social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter. Due to this
presence in social media, the customers can easily reach out to them and thus their popularity
has raised on a regular basis (Bigeasy.co.uk. 2018). They have the service of 24*7 customer
care, where the customers can easily interact with them and their queries are being answered
within 2 hours. They can even book tables and make reservations by the social media. The
customers can also share their feedback about the restaurant on the particular page of social
media (Bigeasy.co.uk. 2018). The reviews of both negative and positive are properly
answered by the customer care service. If the customer has faced any unpleasant experience
in the restaurant, they apologize to the customer and makes sure that this type of service is
never repeated. Furthermore, this presence in social media has brought them several
important and significant advantages or benefits (Bigeasy.co.uk. 2018). The major
advantages of social media presence of Big Easy Canary Wharf are as follows:
i) Recognition of Brand: Big Easy started its journey from 1991 and today after
twenty seven years, it has reached to excess height (Minazzi 2015). It can be easily
recognized by name. In the beginning, most of the customers did not know about this
restaurant. However, when they opened up their profile in various social media and social
networking sites, the customers all over London soon recognized them. The brand
recognition was increased due to this (Balakrishnan, Dahnil and Yi 2014). Content was
syndicated and the visibility of their business was solely increased. Social media acted as

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simple types of news channels that provided voice as well as content for the flourishing
business of Big Easy.
ii) More Opportunities to Convert: Each and every post that they have properly
shared on the social media platform provided them various opportunities for the clients to
convert (Laroche, Habibi and Richard 2013). They have the service of 24*7 customer care,
where the customers can easily interact with them and their queries are being answered
within 2 hours. They can even book tables and make reservations by the social media. Due to
this service, they have got several new customers and also have got the access to newer
customers, recent customers, and older customers, and they have the ability for interacting
with all of them (Tiago and Veríssimo 2014). Each and every blog post, images, videos, or
comments that are shared is the chance for someone to provide reaction, and all the reactions
could easily lead to visiting of their site, and eventually start a conversion (Leung et al.
2013). It is not that each and every interaction with Big Easy brand ends up in a conversion,
however each and every positive interaction has incremented the probability of any eventual
conversion.
iii) Reducing of Marketing Costs: This is one of the most important advantages of
social media presence in Big Easy Canary Wharf (Godey et al. 2016). This particular
restaurant did not require any other type of marketing, since they have already advertised
their products and services in the page of social media. The overall marketing costs are
reduced as posting or advertising on social media are much cheaper and cost effective than in
any newspaper or news channel (Zhu and Chen 2015). Being a small and medium sized
enterprise, Big Easy eventually required the need for reduced marketing costs. This was
possible with social media. The overall expenses for marketing was reduced or mitigated and
thus the organization gained profit (See Appendix A).

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iv) Richer Customer Experiences: Social media, is the channel of communication
just like phone calls and emails (Ekinci, Sirakaya-Turk and Preciado 2013). Every interaction
with the customer on social media is the chance to depict their level of customer service and
therefore enriching the customer relationship (Andersson and Lundberg 2013). For example,
when a customer complaints about any particular service or product on Twitter or Facebook,
Big Easy can straight away check and address that comment, apologize, and thus take
essential actions for making it right. On the other hand, if any customer compliments Big
Easy, they could easily thank them and also recommend extra products (Dickinson et al.
2014). It is the type of personal experience that has let the clients in knowing that Big Easy
cares about them.
v) Competitive Advantages: This is one of the most important advantages that Big
Easy Canary Wharf has got from their presence of social media strategy (Aitchison et al.
2014). The competitive advantages have solely helped this restaurant in knowing their
position in the market and have shown the way in achieving more success (Varfolomeyev et
al. 2015). Big Easy has the potential to become the market leader and thus by acquiring more
precise strategies of social media; they would conquer and rule the world of hospitality
businesses.
vi) Higher Brand Authority: The interaction with various customers on a daily basis
is the showing of great faith for all other customers (Andersson and Lundberg 2013). When
customers go for complimenting or bragging about the food and services, they always turn up
to social media. In addition, when they post anything regarding the brand name of Big Easy,
new audience members always wish to follow them for follow ups and new updates (Coles,
Fenclova and Dinan 2013).