Social Media is becoming increasingly important in all businesses and the travel and tourism industry is not an exception. Increasingly, hotels are looking for ways to incorporate the popularity of sites such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to gain clientele.
Some of the Melia Group hotels for example have established a specialist concierge service run by Twitter. Guests can make requests and queries via the social media application on their phones for ultimate customer comfort. Many experts in the field expect the trend to continue to develop over the next few years as social media sites also continue to grow globally.
Where Instagram is concerned, the 1888 Hotel in Sydney has been purposely designed in the interests of the social media application, with furniture and ornaments purchased and arranged to be as camera friendly for mobile devices as possible. Similarly, the W New York was one of the first companies to appreciate the value of Instagram in business. In partnership with Instagram, the hotel NYC, launched a contest open to the public that resulted in one of the world’s first-ever Instagram photo exhibitions. It was held at the Living Room at W New York in Times Square during May 2013 and attracted a great deal of interest. Similar exhibitions have since been held in London, Dublin and Singapore as other companies look to utilise the power of social media for their brands.
