Marriott Hotel: Digital Marketing Strategies Analysis Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Marriott Hotel's digital marketing strategies. It begins with an environmental analysis, including a SWOT and PESTLE analysis to assess the hotel's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, and the impact of political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors. The report then critically assesses Marriott's digital presence, comparing its social media marketing and digital tools to those of competitors like Hilton. Furthermore, it proposes a plan for organizing digital marketing activities to support Marriott's multi-channel capabilities. Finally, the report outlines key methods for evaluating, monitoring, and measuring the effectiveness of digital marketing efforts across the business, offering a complete overview of Marriott's digital marketing landscape and providing actionable insights for improvement and future strategies within the hospitality industry.

Hospitality Digital
Marketing

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
An environmental analysis for Marriott Hotel digital presence, along with focusing on
opportunities, challenges and likely impact digital environment for industry-..........................1
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................5
Critical assessment of Marriott Hotel business by comparing and contrasting its digital
presence-.....................................................................................................................................5
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................7
Providing a plan for organizing digital marketing activities for supporting Marriott Hotel's
initiatives of building multi-channel capabilities-.......................................................................7
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................10
Key methods that can be used for evaluating, monitoring and measuring the effectiveness of
digital marketing across the business-.......................................................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................14

INTRODUCTION
Hospitality digital marketing is very essential for these industries. They can enhance their
revenues and profit by adopting several digital marketing tool.
Marriott Hotel is third biggest chain of hotel across the world. Hotel is situated at 6,906
location across the world. The company is gaining revenue of $20.75 billion. There are more
than 176,000 people who are employed under the company. The above report includes
environmental analysis for Marriott hotel digital presence, focusing on opportunities, challenges
and likely digital environment for industry. Report further carried forward with providing the
critical assessment of Marriott Hotel business by contrasting and comparing its digital presence.
Creating the marketing plan for organizing digital activities for supporting hotel's initiatives of
building multi channel capabilities. Report ends with the providing key method for evaluating,
measuring and monitoring digital marketing effectiveness.
TASK 1
An environmental analysis for Marriott Hotel digital presence, along with focusing on
opportunities, challenges and likely impact digital environment for industry-
SWOT Analysis:
SWOT Analysis is strategic planning tool that can be utilized for helping organization or
person for identifying strength, weakness, opportunities and threats which are related to the
business planning. It can be described below-
Strength-
Marriott Hotel had strong position across the market and also have expanded and
diversified business all over world. It also has strong financial position due to wide range of debt.
They are rendering huge range of product and services to their consumer and highly satisfying
them, by this company had gain strong position regrading consumer as they had gain loyalty base
among their consumer (Murphy, Chen and Shapiro, 2017). Hotel also have good employee
retention they are employing over more than 150,000 workers. It has over 3700 hotel and resort
within 70 nations. Company is moving toward technical and innovation so that they could
improve consumer experience and upgrading their business process constantly.
Weaknesses-
As Hotel had extended business, they are becoming weak in the management system due
to their pathetic business performance. They are experiencing backwardness in infrastructure
1

within field of information and the technology management. Marriott hotel could have
competition from long established hotel (Choi, 2017). As company is expanding itself globally
along with huge number of hotels may lead to the brand dilution. They are also liable to pay a
civil penalty to the one of their guest of $600,000 for blocking personal Wi-Fi. The company had
also face up the bad publicity in market.
Opportunities-
There is an opportunity for Marriott hotel to emerge into the international market with
high potential. The global hospitality sector is developing and growing very rapidly. They could
also have technologies and innovation in their consumer service so that they can highly satisfy
their consumer. Hotel can also move toward having a renovation and best interiors in their
premises so that they could attract customer widely. There are large number of individual for
pleasure and work both is rising immensely. This opportunity can be availed by hotel with their
existing property and further building strategic alliance with another chain of hotel and airline.
They also had an opportunity to develop more digital marketing techniques so that they can
attract huge consumer and gain profit and revenue significantly.
Threats-
Hotel Marriott has the intense competition from the new entrants which are adopting
various technologies and innovations in their services which are gaining huge consumer towards
them. They also have a threat of getting the loyalty right. Company is also facing a major threat
from the brand such as Hilton, Novotel etc., who are constantly working to become a market
leader. The situation of global recession has adversely affected the hospitality business and thus
many of the properties are being sold out in the market due to losses in business this had also
affected Hotel Marriott (Bowie and et.al., 2016). They also have threats from the terrorist attacks
as rated properties are largely targeted by terrorists. The biggest threat is the military conflict or
terrorist attack which can disrupt global air travel or frighten individual away from the travelling.
PESTLE Analysis:
It is the framework and tool that is utilized for monitoring and analyzing micro-
environmental factor which could have profound impact on company's overall performance. This
technique is helpful for company to start new business or further entering into the global market.
The PESTLE Analysis of Marriott Hotel has bee described below-
2

Political Factor-
The main political factor which had affected Marriott hotel are international relation,
terrorism and political climate of the popular destination where they are rendering their service to
travellers. The travel ban, anti immigrant statement by government would directly affect the
business of Marriott hotel along with expanded wall with the Mexican Border. They are facing
huge issues by this political changes in the country. The uncertain major political issue in
country is EU that had impacted the business of hotel significantly and had huge impact on their
profit margin and revenue.
Economic Factor-
The fluctuation in currency had affected the all over business in whole UK. Due to
situation of BREXIT there is huge recession in market where the purchasing power of consumer
has been declined and thus the tourism sector has been widely affected (Bhargav, 2017). So the
business of Marriott hotel has been significantly affected as consumers are now not spending on
the travel and leisure. There is intense airline competition in market as well which had affected
the company as well. In case of economic slow down hotel could face the reduction in their
economy.
Social Factor-
There is increase in consumer spending on hotel is expected to enhance ate 5|%, and this
has been enhancing in luxury segment. The spending of tourist in UK had hit $353 billion. Thus,
more and more consumer are rather than spending on the other thing greatly spending on travel.
The terrorist attacks had also slow down the travellers to visit affected places and thus the
business of hotel should also be affected. The changing taste and preference of consumer also
somehow become challenge for them to adopt but nowadays consumers are becoming more
technological addict they need all things to be automatic or with one step. By keeping this in
mind more and more technological inundation must be done by company in their services. As
consumer spend their all over the time on internet then hotel can also promote their services &
hotel effectively through digital marketing so that wide range of consumer can be attracted. They
can also light up activities of their guest experience by which consumers are more attracted
toward hotel and its services. The different region has various demand for the lodgings and
experience which are enjoyed by the guest of the hotel who are travelling across several
countries.
3

Technological Factor-
The innovation could be adopted by hotel so that they could have a great services in their
hotel to guest and thus they can easily get competitive advantage. They can also start their own
application where the consumer can book their room and services effectively and could also pay
for that on this application directly. They can also let their consumers to enjoy room services
with the help of that application at one step. This is helpful for company to satisfy their
consumers widely which encourage them to visit again (Leite and Azevedo, 2017). Thus, by
adopting several innovations and digital technology they can gain huge success in marketplace.
Marriott hotel can also use the digital marketing tool for promoting and advertising their business
at great platform and wide rang of travellers and consumer are attracted to stay into hotel and
enjoy the world-class services which are given by hotel.
Legal Factor-
In November 2018 Marriott Hotel has been faced up lawsuit. The private information of
their 380 million visitors have been leaked up and thus ICO London had investigated all over
hotel's privacy policy. This lead to have company to pay hefty penalties and fine for such data
security incident in the premises. The reputation of company had also being reduced and the
loyalty base of their consumer had also declined. So they had to install the various application
and cyber security into their devices to safeguard the private data of hotel and individual.
Marriott hotel is moving forward for adopting and achieving the standardization along with
complying to law so that they could follow the law. By this can sustain in market for long term
and gain huge revenue and profit further.
Environmental Factor-
Nowadays consumers are more preferring sustainable hospitality. So the Marriott hotel
must also move towards adopting the several sustainable practices into their business operation
so that they can gain huge consumer attraction towards their hotel. So they had decided to take
main step towards eliminating usage of plastic straws in their all the hotel premises across the
world. They had decided to decline the consumption of straw by 1 billion units. Hotel had also
sensitize over more than 500000 if their workers regarding issue of the human trafficking by
which they had maintained huge employee retention across company (Punchihewa,
Gunawardena and Silva, 2017). They had also launched the “Serve 360: Doing Good in Every
Direction” which mainly focus on various sustainability goals that can be declining carbon
4

footprints, human right, recycling the wastage etc., This all practices had a significant effect on
their consumers.
TASK 2
Critical assessment of Marriott Hotel business by comparing and contrasting its digital presence-
There are various digital tool, channel and platforms that are used by some hospitality
organization. These tools are helpful for them in promoting and advertising their hotels across
the world to the wide range of peoples. By this they could gain huge competitive advantage
among its rivals. Some digital tool that are used by Marriott hotel and other hospitality
organization can be compared below-
Marriott Hotel Hilton Hotel
Social media marketing
Social media marketing is very popular
nowadays and helpful in promoting the
business. Social media site such as Facebook,
Instagram for promoting and advertising their
hotels and resorts effectively.
Facebook: It is the most popular social media
channel which is used by the wide range of
consumers. Thus, the Marriott hotel uses the
Facebook for promotions and advertisement
they used to post photos, video, blogs and
content here so that individual can go through it
and encourage opting services in hotel
(Hasenzahl, Kalbaska and Cantoni, 2019). They
also provide various offers, packages, discount
offers and specialized services in their content
so that the customers can be attracted.
Social media marketing
The hospitality business are striving hard as
they are heavily depended on the social media
advertising and promotion. Hilton also uses
various social channels for promoting their
company that are Instagram, Facebook etc.,
YouTube: It is popularly used channel for
marketing through videos. They used to
upload videos of their hotel and resorts by
seeing that consumer can easily attract to opt
service with hotel and have an amazing
experience with hotel. It is the visual content
which is more attractive as compare to the
factual content.
Keyless entry-
It provides their guest with the keyless entry to
the room where guest can skip the queue for
Digital key-
They also render digital check into room to
their customers. The guest can download the
5

check-in-line and could go straight to their
room, unlocking their rooms with Apple watch
or iPhone. They provide 24 hours services to
their guest which can be easily accessed by their
application. This digital technology also attracts
consumers to the hotel.
application and easily check in and check out
from the room. The guest could also use this
application for various hotel services. This
technology allows hotel to satisfy their
consumer and enhances them to enjoy the
services of hotel.
Search Engine Optimization-
This is used by company effectively so that they
can put them on the top of searching and thus
consumer can easily attract towards the hotel
and eagerly access to visit hotel and enjoy its
services. It is the most commonly used tool to
enhance sale and attract wide range of
consumer.
Email Marketing-
They use Email marketing and provide
various discount offers and packages to their
existing customer and attract them to visit the
hotel and enjoy services of hotel
(Tsourgiannis and Valsamidis, 2019).
Professional traveller are usually connected
with the email and thus they will be opting the
offers which are given by company.
Content Marketing
This is the most helpful tool for marketing,
creating brand awareness, lead generation and
attracting consumers. The various channels
which are used by company that can be-
Blog post: They write and publish article on the
hotel blog which is helpful for them to convert
website visitors into their consumers.
Ebook and whitepapers: Whitepapers and
Ebook are helpful in educating the visitors who
are visiting company's website. It accesses to
exchange the content for reader's contact
information, generates lead for the hotel further.
Infographics
It is used by hotel to attract wide range of
consumer, they provide visual content on their
website so that the visitors who are visiting
there could go through the content and thus
effective content will let the individual to visit
and enjoy hotel services.
6

TASK 3
Providing a plan for organizing digital marketing activities for supporting Marriott Hotel's
initiatives of building multi-channel capabilities-
Marketing Plan
Executive Summary:
The digital marketing is helpful for hospitality organization to gain huge revenue and
profits by attracting wide range of consumers to the company. By using the effective marketing
plan the products and services can be marketed into the marketplace in such a way that it can be
helpful for company to gain huge success and revenue further (Kiraidt and Novik, 2018). The
marketing plan has been prepared for Marriott hotel which includes 5 star rated luxury services
in it.
Mission: To enhance lives of consumer by creating and enabling unsurpassed vacation and
leisure experiencing.
Vision: To be the World's Favourite Travel Company.
Objective:
 To extend their luxury brand division by 20% in upcoming 6 months.
 To increase customer satisfaction by 5% in next 6 months.
 To enhance their initiatives of building multi channel capabilities by 30% in upcoming 2
years.
 To enhance revenue by 20% till 2021.
SWOT Analysis:
It is the study which is accessed by company for identifying their internal strength &
weaknesses as well as their external opportunity and threats. This can be stated below-
Strength-
The major strength of Marriott hotel is that it had maintained its presence across 122
country globally and has 600 properties under their umbrella. Company is also majorly focusing
on innovations and most of their system & procedure are integrated with technologies. So along
with that company could adopt the digital marketing technologies across business for promoting
and advertising their hotels and its services in such a way that the consumer attraction has been
enhanced significantly (Redondo, de Avila and Palma, 2018).
7

Weaknesses-
The Marriott Hotel has been struck into many of the negative publicity which had
impacted the brand reputation of hotel in marketplace and among consumers. Further by
adopting digital marketing they can effectively promote their hotels & resorts and their services
to consumer so that they can be widely attracted and motivated to enjoy the services. The huge
consumer loyalty base can be build by company with the help of digital marketing tools.
Opportunities-
There are several opportunities to the hotel in the marketplace but one of the major
opportunity is to explore themselves at global platform (Patrutiu-Baltes, 2016). They could
establish more of their hotels and resort across the world. Along with that they also had an
opportunity to promote and advertise through digital marketing tool by which they can attract
wide range of consumer to the hotel and thus hotel's profit and revenue will significantly
enhance. They had a wide opportunity to grow in the market effectively with the help of digital
marketing tools and generating commuters.
Threats-
The Marriott hotel had threat from new entrants along with that it also have threats from
the existing competitors available in marketplace. So they can effectively compete with their
rivals in market through adopting digital marketing technique. They can promote and advertise
their hotel and its service to the customer in effective way that they can be attracted to opt
service with the hotel. By adopting this tool they can build huge brand image among consumer
and can be at the top among consumer with their effective promotional and marketing strategies.
The threat of the company can be overcome and turned into an effective opportunity and growth
for hotel.
Marketing strategy:
4Ps-
Marketing mix is also known as 4Ps of marketing. It is the set of tool which is used by
company for pursuing their marketing objective in such a way that their overall traget can be
accomplished. This can be described below-
Product-
The various products and services are refereed by hotel to their consumers. They offer
wide range of offers, packages to their consumer. Marriott hotel also render the packages as per
8

the need and requirement of their guest which is helpful to them to provide wide range of
satisfaction to their guests. Luxurious services are given by hotel to their each and every guest
and let them to have a memorable experience with them. This all product and services of the
Marriott hotel can be promoted easily by digital marketing tool so that more and more consumers
can be attracted.
Price-
The pricing of their services and products are as per the objects in its. But the pricing of
their services are extremely high as it offers the luxurious services to their guest and avails them,
to enjoy the awesome experience with hotel (Chaffey and Smith, 2017). They have a high
pricing for their luxurious services and this can be more explored through digital marketing tool.
Place-
The hotel and resorts are situated at more than 6906 locations. Thus, it states that
company has been globally expanded and having its business operation across the world. This
had created a wide range of scope for company to grow and develop and attract consumer by
adopting the digital marketing tool for attracting wide range of consumer to their hotel. They can
easily reach to the consumers of each location and letting them to enjoy services offered by
them.
Promotion-
For promoting this product and services to the market effectively they can use the various
digital marketing tool which can be helpful for company to sustain in market and compete with
rivals. They can use social media marketing tool for advertising their product and services to the
marketplace.
Financial Planning:
Salary £20000
Rent £4000
Maintenance £30000
Total £54000
9

STP:
The demographic segment has been focused by Marriott hotel and further the young
generation and middle age people are targeted by company broadly. The positioning of the
product and services can be effectively done by using the digital marketing tool effectively so
that product and services attract huge consumers significantly (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick,
2019). This is helpful for them to target them effectively and gain huge success further and
promote their product and service.
Monitoring and Controlling:
The key performance indicator will use by Marriott hotel to control and monitor that the
company is performing well or not whether the strategies used by company are successful or not.
Company could gain huge success if these strategies are helpful for company in gaining huge
revenue ad profit and if they are not they can mould their strategies as per the market conditions.
TASK 4
Key methods that can be used for evaluating, monitoring and measuring the effectiveness of
digital marketing across the business-
Digital Marketing which requires putting lot of money and efforts in it and so have been done by
Marriott Hotel. All this investment of money and efforts requires that it is measured and
monitored to ensure that all the efforts are going on the right way. Some methods that can be
used by Marriott Hotel are as follows-
Overall Website Traffic
All the efforts that are made in digital marketing are aimed at driving traffic to the
website of the Marriott. Individual and specific campaign of the company may focus on the list
building or increasing traffic on social media of the Marriott Hotel but ultimately all the efforts
are aimed at increasing traffic on the website of the Marriott (Murphy, Chen and Shapiro, 2017).
The reason behind this is that website of the company serves as home of the company and face of
the brand of the company. If traffic on the website of the company is high which means that all
the efforts of the company are moving in right direction but if the traffic is lower than company
needs to recheck its efforts. In relation with website some other measures are as follows-
10