Hospitality Digital Marketing Strategies for Marriott Hotel

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Marriott Hotel's digital marketing strategies. It begins with an introduction to digital marketing and its significance, particularly within the hospitality industry, followed by an environmental analysis that considers both internal and external factors. The report identifies opportunities and challenges for Marriott in the digital space, focusing on the company's '3Cs' strategy: content, community, and commerce. It then delves into the specific digital marketing tools used by Marriott, such as sponsorship, social media, and website marketing. A detailed digital marketing plan is presented, outlining objectives, strategies, and tactics to enhance sales and customer experience. The report also evaluates the effectiveness of digital marketing efforts, offering insights into how Marriott can monitor and measure its performance to optimize its marketing campaigns and achieve its business goals. The analysis is based on the assignment brief for a Higher National Diploma in Business, Unit 24: Hospitality Digital Marketing.

Hospitality Digital
Marketing

TABLE OF CONTENT
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
Environmental Analysis...............................................................................................................4
Opportunities of Digital Marketing for Marriott Hotel...............................................................5
Challenges of Digital Marketing for Marriott Hotel....................................................................5
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................6
Digital Marketing Tools used by Marriott Hotel.........................................................................6
Task 3...............................................................................................................................................7
Digital Marketing Plan for Marriott Hotel...................................................................................7
Task 4.............................................................................................................................................10
Digital marketing effectiveness.................................................................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Digital marketing plays very excellent role in any business or any company. In this
dynamic and modern world, each top-level management within each company or business is
highly required to develop an effective digital marketing plan for gaining high success in their
respective industry or sector. Basically, digital marketing is described as promoting a company’s
products and services at various digital channels. This report mainly discusses digital marketing
aspect of Marriott Hotel. The hotel was established in the year 1957 by J. Willard Marriott, in
which he was the founder of this hotel, headquartered in Maryland, United States (De
Pelsmacker, Van Tilburg and Holthof, 2018). This report has been included an effective digital
marketing plan as well. Report has also analysed about the various digital tools and techniques
which different companies are using for promoting their products and services through internet.
On the other side, this report has covered different digital marketing operations for the Hotel as
well. In order to monitor and control the various operation which has linked with digital
marketing plan. Day by day there are market competition in each industry is continuously
increasing, in which the Marriott hotel can use digital marketing strategy to gain huge
competitive advantage in the international hospitality industry.
TASK 1
Marketing is the strategic process through which a business organisation promotes and
advertises its goods and services to the public in the consumer markets with the intention to
generate interest amongst the market consumers in relation to their goods and services and attract
them towards the operations of the business in regards to conducting a financial transaction.
Digital marketing is the process of promoting and advertising goods and products through the
use of digital technologies and the internet. Business organisations such as Marriott Hotels
operating in diverse industries can all make use of two major channels of marketing for their
promotion and advertisement operations. The two channels are traditional and digital channels of
marketing each of which provides marketers with distinct marketing tools to implement their
marketing strategies and accomplish their marketing objectives (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick,
2019). Digital marketing channels make use of the internet and ICT devices for the business’s

marketing operations to promote and advertise their goods and products to a large section of the
population solely through the internet. Contrastingly offline or traditional channels of marketing
make use of offline marketing tools to advertise and promote their goods and services to a large
section of the population. Both traditional and digital channels of marketing provide various
distinct advantages to marketers towards their marketing operations.
Environmental Analysis
Though currently Marriott Hotels does have a respectable presence on the internet and
does engage in the operations of digital marketing, the business’s leadership and management
have placed great emphasis on enhancing and further improving on their current online presence
through its ‘3Cs’ strategic business initiative because of the immense future opportunities that
the digital environment presents to the marketing operations of Marriott Hotels. Marriott Hotel’s
Vice President of Global Creative and Content, Mr. David Beebe, has created the Marriott
Hotel’s new business strategy known as the 3Cs which places increased focus on the community,
content and commerce operations of Marriott Hotels, so that it can perform successfully in the
consumer markets. This 3Cs marketing strategy is implemented to market to and attract the
younger demographic of tourists and populations who are significantly active over online
websites and social media platforms (Kannan, 2017). This strategy of Marriott Hotels tries to
create interactive, engaging and interesting marketing content that is designed to be targeted to
younger generations so that the productivity and profitability of Marriott Hotels can be
effectively increased worldwide. Based on the digital environment analysis of Marriott Hotels,
there are several factors associated with their digital marketing operations such as:
Technology: Technology plays an immensely essential role in the digital marketing operations of
Marriott Hotels, as it allows for the business organisation to create effective digital marketing
content by making use of innovative technologies such as Virtual Reality headsets, high
definition cameras, voice recognition tools etc., with the intention to create marketing content
that is interactive, engaging and interesting for the consumers in an effort to attract them towards
the operations of Marriott Hotels.
Diversification: By making use of both traditional and digital channels of marketing for their
promotion and advertisement purposes, Marriott Hotels have effectively diversified their

marketing operations which allows for the business organisation to attract diverse and different
customers from all demographics, cultures, backgrounds towards their operations.
Content: The digital marketing operations of Marriott Hotels are also completely dependent on
the interactivity, engagement, accuracy, relevance and reliability of the marketing content used
to promote and advertise their services to the consumers (Chaffey and Smith, 2017). As Marriott
Hotel faces intense competition from its rivals within the hospitality industries, it needs effective
marketing content in order to attract customers towards its operations.
Content marketing is the strategic marketing approach through which increased emphasis
is placed on creating and delivering valuable content to customers in order to satisfy their needs
and profit from them.
Opportunities of Digital Marketing for Marriott Hotel
Promoting and advertising their services through the digital channels of marketing
provides Marriott Hotel with numerous opportunities to enhance the success of their marketing
operations and increase their operational productivity, profitability, customer base and market
share. As the internet is steadily being adopted by increased number of individuals throughout
the world, making use of the internet for their marketing operations allows for Marriott Hotel to
promote and advertise their services to a very large base of consumers that are available to them
through the internet at considerably less costs when compared to traditional marketing tools. Not
only does this allow for increased productivity and profitability for Marriott Hotel, but digital
channels of marketing also allow for the Marriott marketers to make use of dedicated marketing
software to monitor, record, store and analyse various operational metrics about the effectiveness
and success of their marketing strategy with the intent to attract consumers, such as Google
Analytics or Hootsuite (Kingsnorth, 2019). Marriott marketers can analyse the various metrics
recorded by these marketing software to improve and enhance the performance of their current
digital marketing strategies so that increased number of customers can effectively be attracted to
the operations of Marriott Hotel further enhancing the business’s operational productivity and
profitability.

Challenges of Digital Marketing for Marriott Hotel
Though digital channels of marketing provide Marriott Hotel with various opportunities,
they also present them with some challenges in relation to their marketing operations. The most
prevalent challenge for the digital marketers of Marriott Hotel relates to generating enough
traffic for their digital marketing operations. Marriot marketers are required to pay immense
attention to the engagement and interactivity of their marketing content, put significant efforts
towards SEO and possess a dynamic, aesthetically pleasing, effective and efficient website in
order to attract consistent traffic online. As today most users have become accustomed to making
use of the internet for their personal purposes, they run a variety of ad blockers and VPNs, these
also hamper the digital marketing operations of Marriott Hotel, as their digital marketing
advertisements are blocked off, affecting the productivity and profitability of their digital
marketing operations. Digital trends are also mercurial and constantly changing, which requires
increased effort from the marketers to always be aware of new digital trends that if missed, can
reduce the effectiveness of their digital marketing operations.
If Marriott Hotel makes effective use of digital marketing channels, then it can have
immensely positive impact on not just its marketing operations, but can also result in an effective
increase of its operational customer base, market share, productivity, profitability, brand
awareness, value and reputation in the consumer markets.
TASK 2
Digital Marketing Tools used by Marriott Hotel
There are several marketing tools that digital channels of marketing provide to the marketing
operations of Marriott Hotel, all of which provide distinct advantages when used by the digital
marketers of Marriott Hotel. Marriott also needs relevant digital hardware to carry out their
digital marketing operations such as servers, storage devices, fast and reliable digital computers,
etc. Online booking and ecommerce operations of Marriott have also increased dramatically in
the past decade. This is due to the widespread adoption of the internet by increased numbers of
individuals around the world and the convenience that customers of hospitality industries have
through the option to book, hire or buy services online through the internet. The different digital

marketing tools that are and can be used by Marriott Hotel for their marketing operations are as
follows:
Sponsorship Marketing: The digital marketers of Marriott Hotel can sponsor various external
digital content creators on third party websites such as YouTube, Spotify etc., with the intention
to encourage these external content creators to promote the services of Marriott Hotel to their
respective audiences. As content creators on YouTube and Spotify tend to have a large audience
and attract millions of individuals to their contents daily, through sponsoring the content of these
external content creators, Marriott Hotel can get them to promote and advertise the services
offered by Marriott Hotel to their significantly large audience, with marketers of Marriott Hotel
only having to regulate the marketing efforts of these external content creators (Mooney and
Slobodian, 2016). This tool is of immense advantage to the digital marketing operations of
Marriott Hotel, as attracting traffic to their digital marketing operations is one of their biggest
challenges and through this tool, they can effectively get the content creator to market to millions
of individuals which are their existing audience.
Social Media Marketing: Another digital marketing tool present to the marketers of Marriott
Hotel is promoting and advertising about their services to a very large base of customers by
using various social media platforms. As social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram,
Facebook, Snapchat etc., attract millions of potential customers, by using social media platforms
to conduct their digital marketing operations, Marriott Hotel can effectively advertise and
promote their services to a very large base of audience at significantly less costs. Through social
media, Marriott Hotel can also market to their target customer base effectively and use the
platforms to dynamically interact and engage with their customers, increasing the effectiveness
of their digital marketing operations. Marriott Hotel already makes use of Snapchat for their
digital marketing operations through external influencers who make “Snapisodes” to promote the
services of Marriott Hotel, but their digital marketing efforts can be improved significantly by
also incorporating other social media platforms.
Website Marketing: Digital marketers of Marriott Hotel currently also make use of their official
website to digitally promote and advertise the business’s services to a large base of audience on
the internet. The website showcases to the customers the different variety of services that
Marriott Hotel provides to them, booking packages that provide customers with great deals and

allow for them to make the booking online as well (Todor, 2016). This digital marketing tool
toolrequires significant efforts from the marketers of Marriott Hotel, as they have to optimize the
various search engines, create engaging and interactive website that can effectively attract
millions of potential customers towards the website.
Task 3
Digital Marketing Plan for Marriott Hotel
Digital Marketing Plan
Aim
To increase the profit and large customer base of hotel by using different digital marketing tools.
Objectives
 To increase the sales of its luxury services by 10% till the end of year 2022.
 For increasing the consumer experience in the upcoming 10 months by 20%.
 To increase the market share by 15% for increasing holiday seeker in Hotel Marriott hotel
till the end of 2023.
 For increasing the profit ratio by 25% till the end of 2024.
Strategies
There are 4Ps of marketing mix strategy has been used below for properly boosting digital
marketing performance of the Marriott hotel.
Product Strategy
The Marriott hotel is one of the most reputed hotels within the international hospitality industry,
just because of its excellent products and services (Ghotbifar, Marjani and Ramazani, 2017). Top-level
management of hotel always focuses on providing some exclusive range products and services. That’s
why most people always like to visit in Marriott hotel. Existing staff and employees within hotel are very
active in their respective job. For example; when any customer visit in its hotel, then existing staff hotel
staff properly communicate with that customer. The main behind proper communication is too put a
positive impression on the customer. On the other side, it has provided food and beverage facility also to
different customers. In this situation, the hotel always focuses on providing the best quality food different
customers, because no customer like those brands which provides poor quality of food. By providing
quality products and services, the top-level management of hotel is able to gain high success in the
market.
Price Strategy

The hotel mainly uses valued based pricing strategy, where it charges rates from customers on
basis of value of products and services. Generally, it offers premium range of products and services in the
market, in which mostly charges high rates from customers. On the other side, people also completely
know in the market that, Marriot hotel charges high rates, because its most products and services mainly
come under premium category. In some cases, top-level management of hotel uses competitive pricing
strategy as well. Basically, competitive pricing strategy give opportunity to set own prices is something
favourable than competitors (Srivastava, 2018). In situation, Marriott hotel always gain huge competitive
advantage in the hospitality industry by using this pricing strategy.
Place Strategy
There is a high demand of digital marketing in hospitality industry because this gives a comfort
for the customers which is a very good factor to the Marriott hotel when they will be able for having a
better communication and services information to various customers in advance. With the support of
internet Marriott as observed that there is going to be low cost researches and will be able to attract a
larger customer base in the hotel. This is going to support this organization for understanding better and
survey on the customers from time to time and improve the services and products quality according to the
expectations of the customers which is really a very essential factor. There are more customers which are
going to get attracted in the company which is a very essential factor for the hotel. That’s why Marriott
hotel will be able to have a better functioning for itself.
Promotion Strategy
Digital channels are being used by marketing team of Marriott for promoting itself in the market
which is a great factor for informing the customers and attract lots of more customers. The hotel is able to
generate very higher revenue by using different digital marketing strategy. In this situation, marketing
team of hotel need to use various digital marketing tools for effectively promoting its different products
and services in the market. There are Marriott hotel should hire some famous actors, singers, athletes,
personalities who will effectively promote this hotel industry so that they can create a higher standard for
itself in international hospitality industry. There are a lot of events which are held in this hotel chain
which is again a great platform for the company to get in the right customers ( Zuev and et.al., 2019).
There have to be multi channels in the hotel, so that they can adopt changes and also engage the
customers in this hotel by having excellent quality of services and products in the market.
Tactics (STP Model) Segmentation
The hotel will have to segment the customers on the base of income status, social class, attitude, interest,
lifestyle, etc. so that they can provide the best to the customers accordingly. The customers who come

online are not paying enough for the services which is why it is very important for the organization to
distribute accordingly. There has to be a use of customer mapping in Marriott so that they will maintain
their high reputation and brand image in the hospitality industry. This is going to help the hotel to
understand different customers and the thinking of them, so that this organization can function
accordingly which is going to make the brand value of the Marriott very higher in the market. Targeting
The company is focusing on the status and the satisfaction of different customers for a comfortable stay
which is by targeting mainly the premium customers in the company. There are messages, call, mails, etc.
which are sent out to the customers who are loyal to the Marriott hotel, so that there is a productive
functioning of the hotel (Durai and King, 2019). There is a visual and audio influence as well on various
customers which is making the Marriott be able for targeting to the right customers in the market which
will make the hotel have very higher profit ratios. Positioning
There are marketing team of the hotel need to hire some powerful influencers in its business environment
who can make functioning and operations of the hotel effective. This is going to support to the Marriott
hotel to increase the satisfaction level, and make this hotel have loyal customers base in the hospitality
industry (Behera and et.al., 2020). The services and products of Marriott hotel have been set for premium
customers in the industry, that’s why it is very essential for this hotel to have a strong functioning for
them.The marketing team should use digital marketing strategies, like social media, affiliate marketing,
web marketing, SEO (search engine optimization) etc. for positively affect customers in the market.
Implementation
The marketing manager at Marriott hotel is responsible to maintain proper communication
channels in the workplace for identifying and analysing all the internal and external factors. Omni
channel is the best experience which the hotel can use in its daily operations, so that there is a productive
functioning. Omni channel is also a part of digital marketing. There are communication methods which
the management will have to get in the Hotel, so that there is a better experience of the customers as well
as the employees in the business environment. It is very necessary for the employees to be highly
motivated as well, so that the changes in the Marriott can come easily. This is going to support this hotel
for gaining huge competitive advantage in the international hospitality industry (Desai, 2019). At the end,
the marketing manager should use KPI (key performance indicator) tool for always running this digital
marketing plan on the progressive path.

Task 4
Digital marketing effectiveness
Digital marketing effectiveness involves monitoring, measure and evaluates the company
performance in market. This involves analysing different aspects of company digital marketing
approaches.
Monitoring: Monitoring involves analysing the approaches operated for digital marketing is as
per the planning of company. Monitoring is an important task involves in planning and operating
the planned operations. This also involves controlling the planned operations for digital
marketing of the Marriott Hotel. Company channelizes its promotional campaigns over different
digital marketing platforms to conducts its marketing (Evansand et.al., 2019). Company also
utilising different marketing channels like social media, internet, radio, television, holdings and
other tools to promote he services of hotel. Monitoring involves addressing the operations
involves in promoting products at all such channels finalised for marketing purpose in the
planning process of company. Monitoring is a tough task as it not just involves implementing all
the plans but also to look up the different complications attached with the planning. All issues
also needs to addressed under monitoring process for digital marketing plan. This involves taking
complete detail about each step involve in marketing and promotion. In order to conducts the
marketing operations company also frame alliances with different entities that involves
photographers, controller and other entities. Monitoring involves controlling all such aspects that
requires to channelize the company’s marketing campaigns. All such approaches involve in
monitoring play an important role for improving the effectiveness of the entire digital marketing
plan. Monitoring is always a tough task involves in operation management. As most of the time
the operations do not go through based on the operation planning. Monitoring involves dealing
with all such uncertain situation that serves complications and issues. The person engaged with
monitoring the tasks needs to involve with all such issues and complexities that create hurdles
for company to deal with such situations.
Measuring:Measuring is also an important task involves in digital marketing campaign planned
by the marketing team of the Marriott Hotel. This is the functional activity which involves
measuring the effectiveness of the operations planned under the digital marketing planning
process. This involves assessing the impacts of different tasks planned to conduct the company’s

digital marketing. Measuring involves identifying the response company is generating due to its
digital marketing activity. It is stated that the company is targeting all such customer base who
are precisely active over different social media networks and internet (Leite and Azevedo, 2017).
Measuring involves identifying weather he company is getting the positive response from such
active potential customers over different digital channels like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter,
YouTube, snap Chat and other sites over internet. This involves assessing the traffic over
different advertising campaigns company launched over internet and other marketing platforms
to gain the growth in business. This is an important functional activity involve in digital
marketing planning process. Marketing team of Marriott Hotel also make significant changes in
its marketing activi5tes based on the outcomes of the monitoring of the digital marketing plan.
This play an important role behind the company is achieving growth from its marketing plan.
Evaluation:
Digital marketing helps to reduce the cost of operation for Marriot hotel and also attracts
more potential candidates and increase the performance of the organisation effectively. With the
help of digital marketing it has developed different quality of services and improved its brand
image in the market to compete with rivalry and gain higher profit margins effectively. However,
due to lack of proper opportunity and increased corporate social responsibility it has impacted
profit margins of Marriott Hotel (Kotler and et.al., 2017). Use of social media to influence
customers has helped hotel to survive in the market and develop effective marketing strategy.
this also helped Marriot to expand its services in different market and expand its business
effectively. nonetheless, social media negative reviews of the guests on internet has impacted on
the brand image and brand equity of the company and has also reduces the potential for company
to develop high trust and perceived values in the company. It has also impacted the supply chain
of different market to develop new products and services in order to increase their business
opportunities and compete in the market effectively.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be concluded that there are top-level management of the
Marriott hotel is highly required to use digital marketing strategy for enhancing it’s all over
performance in the international hospitality industry. Currently there is very high competition in

the hospitality industry. In this situation, if marketing team of Marriott hotel highly consider
digital marketing strategy in its daily marketing operations, then it will be able to gain hue
competitive advantages in this industry. Of course, marketing team of its competitors also has
taken different productive steps towards using this strategy within daily operation, inn which
marketing manager of Marriott hotel need to systematically implement existing digital marketing
plan for gaining effective results than its competitors. With the support of digital marketing, the
Marriott hotel can easily achieve its aim, objectives and targets.

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