The Impact of Social Media on Marketing Luxury Hotels: A Report

This report delves into the significant impact of social media and online platforms on the marketing strategies of luxury hotels. It explores how customer reviews and online ratings, often replacing traditional word-of-mouth, influence consumer decision-making. The report highlights the importance of both positive and negative reviews, demonstrating how they shape perceptions and affect hotel choices. It also examines the role of reviews from friends and family, emphasizing their credibility and influence, particularly in conveying non-price information like service quality. The study underscores that while online ratings are important, they may not lead to the final decision as much as reviews from people known to the consumer, concluding that online ratings, reviews, and opinions from friends and family are all crucial factors in the hospitality industry.

Marketing
The role of social media and online platforms in luxury hotels

The hospitality industry is also deeply influenced by the social media, as would be elaborated
in the below sections. The first component of the social media in relation to the luxury hotels
is the customer reviews. It must be noted that the contributions made by like-minded
community members on the online platforms aid in the decision making processes and are
considered as an efficient way to share experiences of a brand (Phillips et.al, 2017). The word
of mouth has been largely replaced by the online ratings of a brand, including luxury hotels.
The studies of the online reviews in relation to the hotel industry has led to the observation
that while the positive ratings lead to greater impact only when combined with the word of
mouth, the negative ratings have significant impact on the decisions of the consumers
irrespective of word of mouth (Gavilan, Avello and Martinez-Navarro, 2018). It has been
assessed that the consumers’ shortlist the hotels in the decreasing order of their numerical
ratings. In addition, these ratings lead to the significant impact on selection process when
these are from a trusted source. According to Sokolova and Krishna (2016), when the ratings
are positive combined with a review, the decision making process involve whether to choose
the place or not. In contrast when the ratings are poor, the decision process changes to
whether to reject the hotel or not. Further, it has been assessed in various researches that the
customers examine the recent reviews in addition to the credentials of the users to give
weightage to the ratings in the decision making process.
The yet another key element affecting the decisions of a consumer in relation to the
hospitality industry is the reviews as extended by the friends and families. The opinion of
family and friends regarding the choice of the hotels is mostly relevant when there is
similarity in the travel choice and hospitality taste. Nevertheless, review from a good friend
about a hotel leads to change in choices that were earlier based on the online reviews and
ratings, mainly because of credibility and trust (Gellerstedt and Arvemo, 2019). The studies
have suggested that a single good review from a friend or a relative holds more significance
and can change the perception as from the online reviews and ratings. The reviews of peers
and friends are specially significant in relation to the non-price information such as behaviour
of employees, hygiene, laundry service, room service and other similar qualitative aspects.
Further, these reviews are considered as more trustworthy because of the element of the trust,
which is absent in the online ratings. As opposed to online ratings, the recent visit principle
does not applies in the case of the friends and family reviews. The online ratings though are
also significant, but do not leads to final decision making, as against the word of mouth of

known people. Thus, it can be concluded that the online ratings, reviews and opinions of
friends and family hold relevance in decision making in hospitality industry.

References
Gavilan, D., Avello, M., and Martinez-Navarro, G. (2018) The influence of online ratings and
reviews on hotel booking consideration. Tourism Management, 66, pp. 53–61.
doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2017.10.018
Gellerstedt, M. and Arvemo, T. (2019) The impact of word of mouth when booking a hotel:
could a good friend’s opinion outweigh the online majority?. Information Technology &
Tourism, 21(3), pp. 289-311.
Phillips, P., Barnes, S., Zigan, K. and Schegg, R. (2017) Understanding the impact of online
reviews on hotel performance: an empirical analysis. Journal of Travel Research, 56(2), pp.
235-249.
Sokolova, T., and Krishna, A. (2016). Take it or leave it: How choosing versus rejecting
alternatives affects information processing. Journal of Consumer Research, 43(4), pp. 614-
635. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucw049.