Case Study: Social Media & Mobile Tech in Hospitality Businesses

This case study critically evaluates the impact of social media and mobile technology on hospitality businesses, using Marine Court Hotel as an example. The analysis covers the hotel's current social media strategies, including its presence on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and assesses the effectiveness of its website. The study uses a qualitative data methodology to explore the hotel's e-tourism efforts, rating its use of the internet, social media, and mobile technology. Findings indicate a strong focus on internet use for communication and distribution, good but not excellent social media engagement, and a need for mobile application development. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of social media and mobile technology in enhancing marketing strategies, brand loyalty, and customer relationships within the hospitality sector, suggesting improvements for Marine Court Hotel to optimize its digital presence and competitiveness. Desklib provides access to similar case studies and resources for students.

Critically evaluate the
developments of Social
Media and mobile
technology on
Hospitality

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................................2
CASE STUDY EVALUATION......................................................................................................3
Case Study Methodology.......................................................................................................3
Rating Based Evaluation........................................................................................................6
The social media: finding and discussion...............................................................................6
New strategy: Mobile Application.........................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Service industry has occupied an essential role in the development of several industrialized
countries from the past few years. Innovation in the several models of business along with the
technologies of converted the entire service environment of a country. It has been found at the
today's service industry is mostly dependent Honda social media along with the other internet
sources for the purpose of approaching to their customers. It is found as necessary for the
hospitality sector that they should focus on social media marketing and communication process
for the purpose of marketing they are services in an effective and efficient manner. Innovation of
business models and introduction of new and advanced technologies bring several changes in
that tourism and hospitality industry (Sarkar and George 2018). Some of examples of innovation
include mobile booking, mobile self check-in, electronic luggage lags, phone-as-key-cards, lobby
media channels and many more. Social media and technologies works for the development in the
extension of organization as it also works for the engagement of customers along with enhancing
the market intelligence. Development of E-tourism is possible only through the digitalization of
hospitality and tourism industry. E-tourism I see staying till work for communicating with their
customers through the social media along with the use of mobile technologies. Such technologies
have an important roller in the small and medium hospitality enterprises as it directly leads to the
increase in the sales in hospitality industry. Internet also brings several changes in the principle
and infrastructure of tourism and hospitality. That choosing organization for this report is Marine
Court Hotel which is located in United Kingdom. This report includes the case study which
states the role of social media and mobile technology for the respective hospitality business. This
report includes the literature review on the present social media strategy which is being used by
the organization. In addition to this, It also involved with the case study evaluation regarding the
choosing organization which include all the findings which alternated from the literature review.
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LITERATURE REVIEW
The last few years, the use of social media plate forms how being increased because of
increase in the number of internet users. The utilization of social media paid forms grown from
the side of businesses as well as individuals. Several companies are using social media as an
approaching tool to the customers. A huge change in the marketing strategy of hospitality sector
has been introduced as it helped the management in continuously communicating with their
guests.
According to Seth (2012), social media brings several changes in the interaction process
of people around the world. Social networking concept was just like the other innovations but it
is becoming more sophisticated day-by-day because of improvement of technology. Seth has
described the social media in the form of an electronic communication, which helped the user
interior and sharing the important information by pictures, audios, videos and text (Creevey,
Kidney and Mehta 2019). It hazard roll up without social media approaches as an effective
marketing tool which is being used for the purpose of communicating with the customers along
with the creating the brand image by continuous correspondence.
Van der Bank (2014) describe social media as a low cost marketing tool which will create
the two way communication process among the business and customers. In the today's world,
The growth of small and medium hospitality business can be effectively done with the use of
social media and mobile technologies. Mgijima and Flowerday (2012) said that social media and
technologies are the potential sources for assisting the small and medium-sized business
organization as it help in improving dog quality of services along with the decreasing the cost.
In United Kingdom, there are several number of small and medium size hospitality organizations
which are using social media and technologies for the purpose of reaching to the customers.
Marine Court Hotel is also using social media for the purpose of a promoting their offerings and
services and attracting the customers towards the organization. Marine Court Hotel is located on
the seafront of Bangor which is the providing bar, gym, on site restaurant along with the other
wellness facilities (Dorcic, Komsic and Markovic 2019). They are also providing room to their
guests which are stylish and traditional decor along with the furniture and several new amenities
such as television, coffee & tea making machine. This organization is using social media and
mobile technology is for the purpose of promoting its services and attracting the customers
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towards the organization. The effective use of social media strategies result in the reaching out to
the potential customers of the organization.
As per the statement of Cardon and Marshall (2015), social media is working more than a
promotional tool for Marine Court Hotel because it helps the business organization in interacting
with the customers in an effective manner along with choosing the hotel and operating by
looking into the issues and demands of customers. By solving the issues of customers, The
organization can positive brand image in the market of United Kingdom. By the usual social
media such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, the customers are able to see the reviews of
actual customers (Gursoy, D., 2019). Marine Hotel is developing their social media strategy by
considering the facts which can help the organization in developing an effective social media
network and create a positive profile in front of people. It also helps the organization in gaining
the advantage of competition as well.
CASE STUDY EVALUATION
Marine Court Hotel is a small hotel which is located in United Kingdom and offering food and
accommodation services to their customers. Marine Court Hotel is entering in the hub of
hospitality industry through a small business unit. The respective business organization is highly
active on social media channels which include Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
Case Study Methodology
In the procedure of analysing the extend of use of social media, the methodology which is
being used is qualitative data methodology. This methodology majorly focuses on the facts not
on the figures. In order to doing the exploratory research, qualitative data of methodology is
consider as the best and effective methodology of data analysis. For the purpose of analysing the
development of social media on hospitality industry, exploratory research has been done. This
analysis has been done in the context of Marine Court Hotel.
Marine Court Hotel has develop their own personalized website which include several contents.
This website of the organization include all the ins and outs regarding their services which they
are offering to their customers. For instance, their services are being classified under several
categories such as business class, economic class, rooms including meals, rooms excluding
meals and many others (Seeler, Lück and Schänzel 2019). Through this personalized website, the
organization is getting reservations as well.
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The website of Marine Court Hotel is found as user friendly because it can be operated by
anyone with a small and little knowledge regarding the technology. Through the use of this
website, the customers can easily get to know about their desired information. Majorly, this
website include all the detailed informations related to the services, which are being offered by
them. The website of Marine Court Hotel include English language for communicating which
can be easily understandable by all the customers (Kamboj, S., 2019). The option of reservation
available in the website enhance the reservations of customers because the customers can select
their desired services by analysing all the available services. The authority of organization give
the opportunity to the people to select their desired service and if the customer found any
difficulty, they also get opportunity to get in contact with the staff members of organization
through phone call. All these services available on website help the organization in interacting
with the potential and existing customers. Along with this, it has been found that the Marine
Court Hotel is highly active on social media which include Facebook and twitter.
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Marine Court Hotel is using Facebook and Twitter as the most important tool of social media in
order to attracting the customers. Above mentioned snapshot is showing the facebook account of
Marine Court Hotel. It help the business organization in interacting with the potential and
existing customers. They are doing post constantly in order to providing the informations to their
customers regarding their services which they are offering to their customers (Law, Leung and
Chan 2019) .
Along with this, Marine Court Hotel is also highly active on Twitter which is also a social
media platform. There are several numbers of followers of hotel on twitter and the management
is uploading photos and videos on constant basis. Below mentioned is the snapshot of twitter
page of Marine Court Hotel:
Through the use of Twitter, the management can easily inform to their customers regarding the
services they are offering to their customers as it also result in the enhancement of values of the
customers. Along with this, they can also retweeting the enquires of their followers regarding
any service which they can offer (Sigala, M., 2018).
Instagram is also found as the best site for the purpose of uploading photos and videos and it has
been found as the mostly using social media site. Marine Court Hotel is also using Instagram in
order to reaching to the potential customers. They are constantly uploading videos and photos for
attracting the customers (Lee and et. al., 2021). In addition to this, they are also updating stories
related to their offers on any specific day or event as well.
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Rating Based Evaluation
Through evaluating all the aspects of e-tourism, below mentioned are the ratings on the basis of a
scale of 10:
Particular Aspects Rating out of 10
Use of Internet 9
Use of Social Media 6
Mobile Technology 4
Above mentioned table is showing that the marine Court Hotel is majorly focusing on the use of
internet which result in effective communication and distribution. The rating of 9 out of 10 is
preferred as good which state that the organization is working excellent.
The use of social media state the aspect of communication with the customers. On the basis of
analysis, 6 rating has been given to the organization out of 10. It state that the branding and
communication of organization is good but not excellent.
The Marine Court Hotel do not have any mobile application and they are required to plan to
develop an effective mobile application which should include several features of increasing
revenue. The performance of organization in the case of mobile technology is found as poor.
Hence, a rating of 4 out of 10 is given.
The social media: finding and discussion
Social media is playing an essential role in the industry of tourism and hospitality. In the
context of respective organization, the above mentioned analysis also shows that the social
media, use of internet, mobile technology are consider as the best approaches used by the firm
and all these approaches leads to the development of the organization in the hospitality industry.
According to the above study of Marine Court Hotel, It has been found at the organization is
using several social media plate forms in order to properly utilizing the marketing strategies and
enhancing the sales (Lu, Chen and Law 2018). Along with this, The use of social media also help
the organization in creating the brand loyalty along with the value of brand in hospitality sector.
The respective organization is also focusing on that development of official website in order to
maintain the effective relationship with their potential and existing customers. Their major focus
on attracting the customers towards the organization as it result in the enhancement of
profitability of organizations. That website include all the important information which can solve
the queries of customers. Customer can get all the informations related to the prices, scheduling,
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availability, offers By the use of official website. Along with this, customers can also do
reservations from website as well.
Through the use of Facebook, the Marine Court Hotel easy making a close contact with their
customers in order to satisfying their needs and requirements along with the solving their
queries. Facebook is found as the easiest and quickest way of reaching to the customers. Through
likes and comments, the management can get to know about the needs and requirements of
customers (Buhalis, D., 2019). It is also a cost effective manner which is being used by the
organizations in developing the relationship with their customers. The organization is required to
be available on Facebook by 24*7 as it help in getting in touch with the guests who are looking
for any hotel. They are required to post constantly on Facebook as it will keep update regarding
the offerings to their customers. By posting attractive photos and videos, The management can
enhance the crucify among the customers in order to knowing about the hotel in a detailed
manner. The involvement of customers with the organization on several social media plate forms
also helps the organization in knowing about the aspects of internationalization of organization
(McCartney and Pao Cheng Pek 2018).
The respective organization is found as more effective user of Twitter as compared to
Facebook. They are highly focusing on maintaining all social media plate forms in an effective
and efficient manner so that they can attract the higher number of customers towards
organization. On regular basis, the organisation is posting that what is going in their organisation
aong with the several offers which are being designed by the marketing department for the
purpose of enhancing the value of customers and profitability as well.
New strategy: Mobile Application
Marine Court Hotel do not develop any of mobile application yet. The organization is
planning to develop this app in future in order to informing all the offerings and changes In their
services to the potential and existing customers. The use of mobile technology is focusing on the
use of advanced technology for calling and identifying the data. From a recent research, It has
been found that 4G and 5G networks are playing an important role in the development of entire
hospitality industry. It is necessary for the organization to use mobile application in order to
communicating with their valueable customers. In the today's world, all the tasks can be done
easily through the use of mobile application. It will become more easy for the customers to get to
know about the organization and scheduling reservations. The increase in the number of users of
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smartphones, result in the use of several mobile applications. Marine court hotel is using social
media plate forms such as Facebook Instagram and Twitter in order to reach into the customers.
All of these social media platforms can be accessed by the use of cell phone.
The rapid development of IT sector also result in the development of overall marketing
strategies of the organizations. The tourism and hospitality industry also brings several changes
because of the development and advancement of technology (Aydin, G., 2020) . The respective
organization is using internet and other social media channels for doing advertisement. They had
developed their marketing strategies and introduces some technology in them in order to making
them effective. It can be more effective if the organization can develop a mobile application.
This mobile application can highly attract the customers towards the organisation as it is much
easier for the customers to run the application and schedule reservations by the use of mobile
application.Below mentioned are the advantages which are the Marine Court Hotel can get by
the introduction of mobile mobile application:
 Mobile applications are faster: from a research, It has been found that the applications
make that's what faster by 1.5 times as compared to the websites. Applications help the
organization in storeing that data of customers. The data can be stored in a while of a
blink of an eye. The storing of data take only a few second to a minute based on the speed
of network. In the context of Marine Court Hotel, that organization can use JavaScript for
running the functions and applications running on the framework so which are five times
faster than the website.
Personalized content: Customers prefer to read the content of which is looking as per their
preferences. Mobile application is just like offering a tailored communication in the preferred
languages. Users use the application in order to getting delightful experience. Personalization is
based on the interest behavior culture of customer (Moslehpour and et. al., 2021). The Marine
Court Hotel can make the categories of their services as per the preferences of customers. They
can also present to all the informative ideas and information in English language as it is mostly
preferred by the citizens of United Kingdom.
 Instant online and offline access: and instant access can be done by mobile application
by a single tap. It announced the customer so for consuming all the content in a fast
manner. Some awful applications work online and offline both. Marine Court Hotel can
develop their mobile application which can work online as well as offline. In this way,
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The organization can get the instant access of users even if they are offline. Ability of
doing work offline is the most fundamental difference among and application and
website.
 Bush notifications and instant updates: The mobile application of Marine Court Hotel
promise in-app notifications the users even they do not open the application. These
notifications work as the promotional tool for the organization as it will push the
customers to open the application and grab the offers and discounts (Al-Maroof and et.
al., 2021). In addition to this, the IT department of Marine Court Hotel can also send
regular updates through Play Store, windows store and iTunes. It will help the business
organization in promoting their services and increasing the profitability of organization as
well
CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been concluded that the social media is playing an important
role in adding all the sectors or industries. Emergence of social media highly impacts the
hospitality and tourism industry. The organization working in these industries are using word of
mouth as and promotional tool. The introduction of technology in the hospitality and tourism
sector brings several of changes in the operations. Customers also want to solve their queries
through online because it save cost and time as well. Marine court hotel is using several social
media plate forms such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter in order to attracting the customers
and solving their queries. But somehow the organization is missing some of their valuable
customers because they are preferring mobile application while doing reservations as they found
it more effective and time saving method. The respective organization is using internet and social
media channel for marketing in an effective manner. But they can improve their marketing
strategy by the use of new strategy which can be developed by the introduction of and mobile
applications.
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REFERENCES
Books and journal
Al-Maroof and et. al., 2021. The acceptance of social media video for knowledge acquisition,
sharing and application: A comparative study among YouYube users and TikTok users’
for medical purposes. International Journal of Data and Network Science, 5(3), p.197.
Aydin, G., 2020. Social media engagement and organic post effectiveness: A roadmap for
increasing the effectiveness of social media use in hospitality industry. Journal of
Hospitality Marketing & Management, 29(1), pp.1-21.
Buhalis, D., 2019. Technology in tourism-from information communication technologies to
eTourism and smart tourism towards ambient intelligence tourism: a perspective
article. Tourism Review.
Creevey, D., Kidney, E. and Mehta, G., 2019. From dreaming to believing: a review of consumer
engagement behaviours with brands’ social media content across the holiday travel
process. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 36(6), pp.679-691.
Dorcic, J., Komsic, J. and Markovic, S., 2019. Mobile technologies and applications towards
smart tourism–state of the art. Tourism Review.
Gursoy, D., 2019. A critical review of determinants of information search behavior and
utilization of online reviews in decision making process (invited paper for ‘luminaries’
special issue of International Journal of Hospitality Management). International Journal
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Kamboj, S., 2019. Applying uses and gratifications theory to understand customer participation
in social media brand communities: perspective of media technology. Asia Pacific
Journal of Marketing and Logistics.
Law, R., Leung, D. and Chan, I.C.C., 2019. Progression and development of information and
communication technology research in hospitality and tourism: a state-of-the-art
review. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
Lee and et. al., 2021. Exploring the roles of DMO’s social media efforts and information
richness on customer engagement: empirical analysis on Facebook event pages. Journal
of Travel Research, 60(3), pp.670-686.
Lu, Y., Chen, Z. and Law, R., 2018. Mapping the progress of social media research in hospitality
and tourism management from 2004 to 2014. Journal of Travel & Tourism
Marketing, 35(2), pp.102-118.
McCartney, G. and Pao Cheng Pek, R., 2018. An examination of Sina Weibo travel blogs’
influence on sentiment towards hotel accommodation in Macao. Journal of China
tourism research, 14(2), pp.146-157.
Moslehpour and et. al., 2021. What Makes GO-JEK Go in Indonesia? The Influences of Social
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Sarkar, S.K. and George, B., 2018. Social media technologies in the tourism industry: An
analysis with special reference to their role in sustainable tourism
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Seeler, S., Lück, M. and Schänzel, H.A., 2019. Exploring the drivers behind experience
accumulation–The role of secondary experiences consumed through the eyes of social
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