Answer:
Introduction
One of the most important aspects in the modern world is the globalization process. Many things have gone through an evolution of technology. The use of technology has advanced so much that all the industries are involved in a race. The tourism industry has come to be one of the most profitable industries in the contemporary business world. The business models that the organizations will imply will be only destined to increase the number of customers and improve their services. The primary motive is to expand the business into other countries. The chosen organization for this paper is Hilton Hotels that has evolved as one of the finest hotel resorts in the world. They have selected social media as their communications strategy to communicate with their customers.
Impact of social media in the travel and tourism industry
Social media is a very strong medium. It can communicate with almost all the people who are involved in using the social media (Bertot, Jaeger & Hansen, 2012) The target audience should be the main focus for all the organizations. As the main issue in this context deals with the travel and tourism industry, the focus will remain so. The main organization is Hotel Hilton. All the important background information has been provided about the organization in the earlier section.
The less travelled destinations have to be promoted by the hotel organizations. The only way to promote this is to use the social media and post the advertisements on the various social media platforms (Munar & Jacobsen, 2014). Hilton Hotels also is trying to do the same. This is because they want to be the industry leaders and get the top spot by earning a higher turnover. The companies want to reach a larger customer base and provide the best services to the customers. Hilton Hotels is also trying the same thing because they want to expand their business properly (Cook, Hsu & Marqua, 2014). They want to set up their business branches in the areas which have not been highlighted as so popular a travel destination. One of the latest trends has shown that people want to travel to less popular places and spend their holidays in an exotic manner.
This is why the tourism industry is gearing up to expand their branches in the less known places (Cook, Hsu & Marqua, 2014) They want to set up their branches in the regions where very less number of people have gone. They do these things because they want to get rid of the notion that only better known places are favorable for holiday destinations. There are some very important aspects of this thing indeed (Munar & Jacobsen, 2014). The economy of the less travelled places will develop in a big way if the hotels decide to open their branches in those areas (Kozak & Martin, 2012). If the popularity of the less travelled places increases, the pressure on the more popular places will decrease as well. This will be helpful for the management and hotel authorities as well (Leung et al., 2013).
Social media use in Hotel Hilton
Hotel Hilton has tended to focus on the use of the social media in many ways. They have implemented this communications strategy among their customers so that they can be aware of their changing desires and provide them with the all the things that they need (Benckendorff, Sheldon & Fesenmaier, 2014). They are willing to promote the lesser travelled holiday destinations. They think they can expand their business in many ways if they implement these strategies (Hilton.com, 2018). They will use the social media in respect to attract more customers towards them. There are many opportunities to promote the tourism sector and advantages can be taken by them in the most positive ways. Hotel Hilton aims to do that positively. There are some ways in which Hilton Hotel can survive in the long run if they take the help of social media as a part of their communications strategy (Hvass & Munar, 2012).
- Hotel Hilton can surely open up their company page or company profile in many social media platforms.
- They can create their profiles in Facebook, Instagram, Google+ and many other social media platforms(Hilton.com, 2018).
- They can promote all these holiday destinations by providing various offers.
- The transport mediums will also be improved once they decide to expand into the less travelled holiday destinations (Sigala, Christou & Gretzel, 2012).
- Their presence in the social media is quite strong. This is why they have succeeded a lot in these areas.
- Their tweeter handle has a good number of followers. This is why the organization has a good deal of customers. They receive good ratings in providing facilities as well (Hudson & Thal, 2013).
- It has been noticed that a good percentage of older people nowadays like to use the social media. They prefer to use the social media over the use of telephone. This is why Hilton Hotels will like to use the social media.
- As a communications strategy, social media is so strong that they can connect with the target audience almost directly (Zeng & Gerritsen, 2014).
- Hilton Hotels has the best presence in Instagram. They update their pages and frequently and posts the picture of the places that have not been that much popular yet.
- This strategy is very much useful because the audience can be attracted to these places by seeing the beautiful sceneries.
- They create their own content and besides that they also take the help from their other users. This is very useful indeed (Zeng & Gerritsen, 2014).
- They create a community that is engaged within their own community. These impacts are very important for Hilton to use the social media.
Conclusion
This paper can be concluded by saying that Hilton Hotels and Resorts has been one of the most important organizations in the travel and tourism industry. They have inclined to use the social media as a weapon to draw the customers towards them and visit the less travelled locations. There are many advantages of using these places. The travelers will be approached by Hilton Hotels to visit the less popular places as their previous customers had a good experience in using their services. This will expand their services and increase the sense of the customer loyalty in them as well.
References
Benckendorff, P. J., Sheldon, P. J., & Fesenmaier, D. R. (2014). Social media and tourism. Tourism information technology, (Ed. 2), 120-147.
Cook, R. A., Hsu, C. H., & Marqua, J. J. (2014). Tourism: the business of hospitality and travel. USA: Pearson.
Hudson, S., & Thal, K. (2013). The impact of social media on the consumer decision process: Implications for tourism marketing. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 30(1-2), 156-160.
Hvass, K. A., & Munar, A. M. (2012). The takeoff of social media in tourism. Journal of Vacation Marketing, 18(2), 93-103.
Kozak, M., & Martin, D. (2012). Tourism life cycle and sustainability analysis: Profit-focused strategies for mature destinations. Tourism Management, 33(1), 188-194.
Leung, D., Law, R., Van Hoof, H., & Buhalis, D. (2013). Social media in tourism and hospitality: A literature review. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 30(1-2), 3-22.
Munar, A. M., & Jacobsen, J. K. S. (2014). Motivations for sharing tourism experiences through social media. Tourism management, 43, 46-54.
Sigala, M., Christou, E., & Gretzel, U. (Eds.). (2012). Social media in travel, tourism and hospitality: Theory, practice and cases. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd..
Zeng, B., & Gerritsen, R. (2014). What do we know about social media in tourism? A review. Tourism Management Perspectives, 10, 27-36.
