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Unlike many modern industries, most of what a hotel does needs to happen offline. It's hard to deliver room service or make beds with a click. But hotels are experimenting with plenty of other ways to improve service and connect with customers using social media. Many of their ideas have serious potential.

"I suspect we are in the same position that we were with online marketing 20 years ago," says Bill Carroll, a senior lecturer at the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell. "The only difference is that it won’t take 20 years, it will take 5 to 10 years until we really see the impact of interactive communication among consumers."

Here are six ways that social media could make that impact on the hotel industry.

1. Extending Concierge Services







A concierge with a Twitter feed could be a powerful thing. Instead of making a single stop at the concierge desk to collect brochures, guests could ask questions before they get to the hotel, from their rooms, or while they're out exploring. They would also have easy access to the questions other guests asked and past recommendations.

Several tourism bureaus have already figured out this strategy. Hotels are for the most part still experimenting.

This month, UK hotel chain Premier Inn launched a trial of a Twitter concierge program. On Fridays, customers can send an inquiry to the concierge via Tweet using the hashtag #PIconcierge. The hotel encouraged its customers to Tweet questions "on anything from local activities for the kids, karaoke bars in the area, directions to the local theatre or even where to find an emergency dentist."

Hyatt launched its Twitter Concierge service in May 2009. "When we launched this," says John Wallis, the global head of marketing and brand strategy for Hyatt, "we made a conscious decision that this channel would only provide information and never push out promotional information."

Although the feed does occasionally handle dinner recommendations, the current conversation is heavier on customer service issues. One person, for instance, asked for help locating a number on his rewards card. Another asked about sending a friend a gift during his stay.

Carroll thinks that the online concierge strategy might be one that sticks. "[If I'm a hotel owner] I'm able to go back and forth with these communications to my customer before they get there, after they get there — so it’s an extension of what the concierge does on a day-to-day basis and that improves service.”

2. On-Site Merchandising







Carroll sees the biggest on-site opportunity for social media in the hospitality industry at the intersection of social media and mobile. If mobile geolocation features alert a hotel that you are in the building, it creates the opportunity for them to pitch relevant services. Perhaps when you arrive, for instance, management will encourage you to come down to the bar and enjoy a complimentary cocktail. When Foursquare users check into the Wynn Hotel & Casino Las Vegas, for example, they unlock a special that earns them a complimentary glass of champagne at Blush Boutique, one of Wynn Las Vegas's nightclubs.

"Location-based services such as Foursquare and Facebook Places have brought a new level of how people demonstrate that they want to be associated with where they are, and that they are interested in communicating with people in the same place," says John Wallis, the global head of marketing and brand strategy for Hyatt. "Based on the evolution of these channels, we have the potential to market to customers in a manner that is 100% relevant to their situation at that moment."

3. Customer Service and Recovery







Interacting with customers using Facebook and Twitter can improve customer service. The idea of personalized customer service was also possible with a telephone number. But it's vastly easier with social media.

"It’s enabling us to accelerate that conversation and make those connection points in ways that weren’t before possible," says Andy Kauffman, the vice president of commerce at Marriott Hotels. "But the principles behind it are all rooted in good service and, if something happens, great service recovery."

Marriott International has two full-time people who work on the Twitter feed. One of them is on the customer service team. John Wolf, the director of public relations, is the other. He says that brand loyalists sometimes point him to people who are Tweeting about problems they've had at Marriott hotels.

“We’d rather know that there’s an issue than not know it, and we’d rather be given the opportunity to solve the problem,” Wolf says.

This strategy has successfully recovered previously dissatisfied customers. It also gives Marriott the ability to solve problems for customers as they arise.

Other major hotel chains also have some version of this personalized customer service. In addition to its HyattConcierge Twitter service, Hyatt guarantees answers within 24 hours to questions that are posted on its Gold Passport Loyalty program Facebook page.

"We really don’t know whether [responding to customers on Twitter and Facebook] pays off or not," Carroll says. "However, at the same time, we do know that the conversations are going on and...that it probably is advisable to be part of the conversation.”

4. Last-Minute Deals







About two years ago, Wolf asked Marriott's online network what they wanted from their social media interaction with the hotel brands. "I figured the last thing they wanted were deals, that they just wanted to engage," Wolf says. "And they said, no, they wanted deals.”

Fairmont and Omni Hotels & Resorts are two examples of chains that tweet or Facebook last-minute special offers in hopes of unloading their unbooked inventory. Carroll says he's seen this approach achieve bookings in the past. “Is that incremental ROI, or are these people who would have done it anyway and all you did was dilute business you would have had otherwise? Did you really steal some share? Don’t really know.”

Inoqo, a service that streamlined this process by creating a Twitter feed on which all hotels in a city could advertise their excess inventory, didn't go as well as expected and eventually took its site down. But still, says Carroll, it's really too soon to tell whether advertising last-minute deals on Twitter and Facebook will be an effective approach.

5. Facilitating Guest Communities







Within the intersection of mobile and social media, Carroll also sees the opportunity for hotels to help facilitate guest communities. “It might be a community I create on a relatively short-term basis for those people who are in the city, on the property, or at some event," he says. "It could be a social group...for whom [the hotel would] gather information about recommendations and what goes on at the hotel or what [one] might do. "

Reward members are another group that hotels are starting to connect with via social media. Marriott launched a beta version of an online community for its reward members called Marriott Rewards Insiders. Marriott's 33 million active reward members can share travel tips and stories as well as get the insider scoop from Marriott's own people.

Hyatt has also built a Facebook community around its Gold Passport reward program. "The purpose here is slightly different than with our Twitter concierge," Wallis says. "Most importantly, this gives consumers the opportunity to speak with us and one another directly."

6. Emphasizing Unique Properties







Social media can make it easier for both large brands and small independent hotels to tell their stories. In the case of large brands, hotels have the opportunity to highlight individual properties. Potential Hilton guests, for instance, can check out videos of each Caribbean hotel on YouTube.

Smaller companies can use social media to reach their customers without a national advertising budget. Many hotels use Twitter, for instance, to communicate promotions and remind customers what they're about.

Carroll says that not all hotels will be able to leverage this ability equally. The value of being able to give voice to individual hotels is only worth as much as the location. “If you’re a standard-along-the-road intersection property for a choice hotel [the opportunities are] limited. If you’re an absolutely unique property... then your ability to create communication around that has greater value.”

Series supported by Gist

The Future of Social Media Series is supported by Gist. Gist keeps you better informed with less effort by giving you a full view of your professional network in one place bringing together information from across the web for all your contacts giving you the right information at the right moment to get a meeting, deliver an amazing pitch, or just find a better way to make a connection.

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