Social Media as a key to Hotel Success

Social Media is affecting every aspect of the Lodging Industry and is a major key to hotel success. 

Anytime I write a blog, paper, or anything about the hotel industry I always have a section that talks about the effect of social media on the industry. The shear number of people that use social media make knowing about and using it effectively a must for any hotel to be successful. Facebook is estimated to have close to one billion users, twitter has approximately 600 million users, and single YouTube videos can have hundreds of millions of views. The best thing about these sites for hotels is that they are free! It is free advertising and marketing and it can reach more people then television or radio ever could. A lot of the big chain hotels do a great job showing and advertising their properties and brands on social media, the Marriott chain even has their own hotel game on Facebook. However one thing I have noticed from even the major hotel chains is that they are not present on some of the major social media sites. For example Trump Hotels, Marriott, and some major Las Vegas hotels are not on Google Plus or Hi-5. To me a major hotel, or any hotel for that matter should be taking advantage of every social media site that is out there. As I stated earlier all of these sites are free so the more your hotel is exposed, the more recognition and business it will receive.