Social Media's Role in Hospitality: A Stafford Hotel Case Study

This report investigates the significance of social media in developing customer awareness within the hospitality industry, with a specific focus on The Stafford Hotel. The research explores the concept of social media, its importance in creating customer awareness, and the effective social media tools used by organizations. The methodology includes a literature review and an examination of the research design and approach, including data collection methods. The findings, analysis, and discussion are presented, followed by conclusions, recommendations, and limitations. The study aims to identify how social media platforms, such as Facebook, can be leveraged to enhance brand promotion, customer engagement, and overall business performance within the hospitality sector, providing insights into marketing strategies and their impact on customer awareness and loyalty.

Research Project

Table of Contents
TITLE: ............................................................................................................................................3
“To identify the importance of Social media in developing awareness among customers for
services rendered by hospitality industry” A case study on The Stafford Hotel.............................3
Chapter 1: Introduction....................................................................................................................3
Background.............................................................................................................................3
Statement of research problem...............................................................................................3
Research aim..........................................................................................................................4
Objective of research..............................................................................................................4
Research Questions................................................................................................................4
Purpose and scope of research ...............................................................................................4
Rationale for selection of topic...............................................................................................4
Research specification............................................................................................................5
Research Time Line................................................................................................................5
Chapter 2: Literature Review...........................................................................................................7
The concept of social media...................................................................................................7
Importance of social media for creating awareness among customer's..................................8
Effective social media tool which is used by organization to develop awareness for
customer's...............................................................................................................................8
Chapter 3: Research Methodology...................................................................................................8
Research Design ....................................................................................................................8
Research approach..................................................................................................................8
Data collection methods.........................................................................................................8
Primary data ...........................................................................................................................9
Secondary data........................................................................................................................9
Data analysis...........................................................................................................................9

Chapter 4: Data Findings, Analysis and Discussion......................................................................12
Chapter 5: Conclusion, Recommendations and anticipated Limitations.......................................20
Reflection.............................................................................................................................20
Conclusion............................................................................................................................20
Recommendations................................................................................................................21
Limitation of study...............................................................................................................22
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................22
TITLE:
“To identify the importance of Social media in developing awareness among
customers for services rendered by hospitality industry” A case study on The Stafford
Hotel
Chapter 1: Introduction
Background
Social media is defined as collection of online communication channels which is
concerned with interaction, content sharing and community based input. It is related to computer
mediated technologies that help in creation and sharing of information, thoughts, ideas along
with other forms of networks and virtual communities (Ahmad, 2016). The various social media
platforms like Twitter, YouTube, Snap chat, Instagram and Facebook can be used by business
organisation as this help to interact with customer's in effective way. Also, this is used as
marketing tool as this helps in improving performance of company within marketplace. The
present study is based on Stafford Hotel, which is 5 star boutique hotel which has its headquarter
in St. James's, London, England owned by Lord and Lady Lyttelton. It is exclusive and historical
hotel in UK which is famous among customers for its unique air of Britishness and warm
ambience. The Stafford Hotel consist of 107 uniquely designed rooms, American bar, small
museum, British restaurant, private cobbles courtyard and 380yr old wine cellar.

Statement of research problem
The impact of social media in order to attain growth objective of business in reference to
hospitality industry. In this regard, manager has asked marketing department to conduct effective
research as this will help to create awareness among customers for services rendered by the
application of social media platforms.
Research aim
The research aim for the current study is “ To identify the importance of Social media in
developing awareness among customers for services rendered by hospitality industry” A case
study on The Stafford Hotel.
Objective of research
 To determine the concept of social media
 To identify importance of social media for creating awareness among customer's.
 To identify effective social media tool which is used by organisation to develop
awareness for customer's.
Research Questions
 What is the concept of social media
 what is importance of social media for creating customer's among customer's.
 Which is effective social media tool used by organisation to develop awareness for
customer's.
Purpose and scope of research
The purpose of this research investigating is to know about importance of social media
and its types as this help to create awareness among customer's for services provided to them.
This is important as this is helpful in profit maximisation by increasing awareness for services
provided to customer's with the application of various social media platforms. The scope of this
research report is that it provides ample knowledge to hospitality industry which increases
performance of business in effective manner.

Rationale for selection of topic
The significance of this research report is to examine importance of social media on
developing awareness of service offered to customer. This research report will help to gain
understanding about how to increase awareness of hotel in customers within marketplace as this
will help to attract and retain customer's for longer period of time. In addition to this, this
investigation will also help to increase profitability and productivity of business organization.
Further, in overall aspect this will support in development and growth of hospitality industry
with long and sustainable growth.
Research specification
The present investigation will be including number of various sub-sections that will
contribute in collaborative manner as this will be helpful in attaining feasible results for research.
Firstly,it covers information consist of background of research. Then, it describes about selected
research objectives and questions. After framing aims and objectives, research investigator will
provide brief information in section of literature review. This section will furnish information
which will help in preparation of research questions as per opinions of different authors. Lastly,
there is description of research methodology with its importance is explained in detailed manner.
It includes description and time period for resources which is necessary for researcher to
accomplished research objectives in effective and efficient way.
Research Time Line
Gantt Chart
A Gantt chart is considered as production control tool which was developed by Henry L.
Gantt in the year 1917 and is prepared in the form of horizontal bar chart (Anitha, 2016). This
chart is created by listing periodic intervals on horizontal axis and tasks to be performed on
vertical axis. The Gantt chart helps companies to plan, track and coordinate various tasks of a
project. Also, managers to know about their resource capacity.

Work breakdown structure
A Work-breakdown structure is tool of project management which breakdown projects
into smaller elements or components. It helps to organize projects into manageable sections with
the help of team work (Berger, 2015). It also provides detailed framework for estimating cost
and control by providing guidance for proper development and control. The main objective of
Work-breakdown structure is to reduce overload of complicated tasks into smaller chunks so that
manager can oversee in more effective and efficient manner. It also assist project manager and
stakeholders to have proper communication and cooperation between each other. Also, it
provides estimations to company on the basis of staff, cost and time factor. The formation of
WBS boost productivity, accountability,transparency and helps in identification of risk in better
way.
Chapter 2: Literature Review
The concept of social media
As per the view point of (Bowie, 2016), Social media is a platform which allows to
communicate and share all the information on the internet by using mobile phones or personnel
computer. There are various platform on social media like Facebook, YouTube, twitter, google,
Linked In, Wikipedia and many more. Nowadays people can connect easily to there friends and
colleague. There been a rapid growth in social media in last few years. Major advantage of social
media is connectivity people from anywhere can connect to anyone in just click of a button.
Beauty of social media is that you can share your thought with anyone regardless of any
religion or location. Social media has various benefits for the students as well as teachers.
Students can study online and nowadays various courses are available online for the student
without paying any fees. By using social media individual can get update about what is
happening around the world. Some times media and newspaper can be bias and do not convey
the actual message but with the help of social media person can get actual information by doing
some research. It also help in building the communities because our world have different religion
and beliefs social media help these communities to come together on a single platform.
Nowadays many companies are doing business online anybody can promote there
business to the larger audience. There are also some disadvantage of social media like

cyberbully, hacking , fraud and scams. Privacy issue is a major concern because all the big
social networking site sells the information to third party for money. Recently Facebook was in
news that they were selling the private information of the individual to other company. As social
media is increasing day by day the fraud and scams are increasing rapidly. Many teenagers have
become the victim of cyberbully since anyone can create the fake account and can do unethical
thing without being traced.
Importance of social media for creating awareness among customer's.
As per the opinion of (Brannen, 2017),Social media play an important and effective role
for the marketing of an organization. Now a days social media is at a boom which helps the
organization to promote and branding of product and services of the business which increases
the target market and customer. As social media helps is attractive and effective tool for
marketing which saves cost to print media as well as it is too creative. By one click social media
grabs the huge market in a minimum time by sharing videos, social blogs, pictures, internet
forums, weblogs, social bookmarking, rating, GIF, micro blogging, pod casts,wikis, websites.
The Stafford Hotel can use various types of social media platform for promotion like YouTube,
Instagram, Google+, Foursquare, Snapchat, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest and many
more. It is interactive and effective which captures the mind of the customer.
Social media is a way of connecting many people, as it helps in sharing important news,
messages and also for creating the professional link, some of social media platform are LinkedIn
and so on. The management of Stafford Hotel can hire the employee with the help of social
media as there are so many platform which helps the manager to recruits the candidates. Some of
the portals are indeed, reed.co.uk, Totaljobs, job-site, Monster, Guardianjobs, Fish4jobs and
many more. This also helps Stafford Hotel in boosting brand awareness, also helps the
management in interacting with customer which results in healthier customer satisfaction,
making the market aware about the product and services hotel is offering.
Effective social media tool which is used by organization to develop awareness for customer's.
According to (Bresler, and Stake 2017),Social media put tremendous impact on business
organizations. Their are many social media platforms such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Snap
Chat, Instagram which are used for promotion and advertisement of brand and new products.
Also, act as effective media marketing tool that helps in resolving disputes and provide services

to customer's. The social media marketers utilize various social media sites which are helpful in
raising visibility on internet as this helps in promoting products and services to larger customer
base. The most effective tool used by Stafford Hotel is Facebook which helps to develop
awareness among customer's for services offered for them. This social media platform help in
getting increased exposure to prospective customers which provides hotel to gather more and
more leads. It also assist marketing managers in reducing their marketing expenses and
effectively reach their target audience. Facebook as social media tool helps Stafford hotel to
increase awareness among customers which also helps in building brand loyalty. Along with this
this assist managers in knowing more about customer's which can include their needs,
expectations and wants.
Chapter 3: Research Methodology
Research Design
Research design is a process of collecting, analysing and measuring data specified in
research (Dwivedi, 2015). This enhance the decision making power about what to study, which
data is relevant, data collection method, analysis of data in research design. In other words, it is
developed according to the research work, it is a tool which helps researcher to design a plan
with relevant information and strategies to solve the problems.
Research approach
Researcher approach is defined as process of collecting, analyzing, interpretation of data.
It can be divided into three parts that is Deductive, Inductive, Addictive research approach. The
deductive analysis describes the exploration of theories and thesis (Fletcher, 2017). This is a
method of verification and explanation and also observation done by statistical testing of
hypothesises. Inductive research is a tool of discovery and development. It uses the secondary
data for effective data collection and also considered the emotions and experience of the
researcher. In the present research inductive research is used, because it helps in gathering
accurate data which is useful for the study.
Data collection methods
Data collection is defined as the process of collecting and gathering the information. It
can be said that the, this a tool by which data is collected in a systematic way for specific

purpose from various sources. There are two method by which data can be collected which
includes primary and secondary data.
Primary data
Primary data are which is collected for first time from respondent with face to face
interaction (Flick, 2015). The methods of collecting primary data are observation, surveys,
experiments, case studies, interview, questionnaire, through schedules etc.
Secondary data
The data which are already collected earlier by someone else for objective. As it saves
cost, time, effort of researcher in collecting data. It can be collected by books, magazines, online
websites, news papers, journals, libraries and many more. In this research, the researcher used
both the primary and secondary methods for collecting data in effective manner within given
period of time.
Questionnaire:
It refers to the set of questions typed or printed in a specific manner, that is prepared by
investigator to get information and opinions of respondents. This is further filled by respondents
so that researcher can do effective analysis and interpretation with the their responses. It is
efficient tool of gathering information as it take time to fill the questionnaire also there are closed
pattern questions by which the respondent do not express their views and opinions.
Sample size:
It refers to choosing the total number of respondent from the whole population. There are
two methods to data sampling probabilistic and non- probabilistic, in this the investigator uses
the data sampling method which comes under probabilistic data sampling method. With this
investigation study, the researcher has selected 40 respondents from the targeted audience. In
present research, the researcher has considered the respondent as a customer to analysis the
importance of social media in developing awareness among customers for services rendered by
hospitality sector.
Data analysis
Qualitative - It helps in getting in-depth understanding of problems and developing
ideas for problems which have arise in business. This is used to have knowledge of opinions,
influencing factors and reasons. The researcher get the insights about problem or help in

developing ideas or hypothesis for positive results. Some of various methods of this research
includes interviews, focused groups and observation. This method is suitable where sample size
is small and respondents are selected to fulfil expectations.
Quantitative- This is used to quantify the research problem by generation of numerical
data or statistics. It is helpful to quantify opinions, attitudes, behaviors, other defined variables
which helps to gather results from large population. The methods of quantitative research are
more structured and it includes survey, mobile survey, online polls, systematic observations and
longitudinal studies.
In the current study, investigator has used qualitative method of research in order to find
out appropriate results based on human perception.
Questionnaire
Q 1) Do you have knowledge of Social Media Concept?
a) Yes
b) No
Q 2) According to your opinion which among them is most important benefit of social media?
a) Cost Effective
b) Brand Awareness
Q 3) Does social media help in creating awareness among customers at Stafford Hotel?
a) Agree
b) Disagree
Q 4) Which among them is most important social media tool used by Stafford Hotel?
a) You-tube
b) Instagram
c) Facebook
Q 5) Does social media help in attracting and retaining customers?
a) Agree
b) Disagree
Q 6) Is their any negative effect of using social media tool?
a) Yes
b) No

Q 7) Does Stafford Hotel provide effective services or not ?
a) Agree
b) Disagree
Q 8) Do you think social media posses the capacity to persuade customers to make a purchase?
a) Agree
b) Disagree
Q 9) Does using social media helps in maximising business profitability?
a) Agree
b) Disagree
Questionnaire
Q 1) Do you have knowledge of Social Media Concept? Frequency
a) Yes 36
b) No 4
Q 2) According to your opinion which among them is most important
benefit of social media?
Frequency
a) Cost Effective 24
b) Brand Awareness 16
Q 3) Does social media help in creating awareness among customers at
Stafford Hotel?
Frequency
a) Agree 32
b) Disagree 8
Q 4) Which among them is most important social media tool used by
Stafford Hotel?
Frequency
a) You-tube 5
b) Instagram 10
c) Facebook 25