Hoteliers follow Facebook with booking engines

From http://www.hotelnewsnow.com/Articles.aspx/7209/Hoteliers-follow-Facebook-with-booking-engines

Story Highlights

• Many hoteliers during 2011 began incorporating booking engines into their Facebook pages.
• At least one industry consultant thinks Facebook's growth has stalled.
• There is little concrete data on the ROI of booking engines on Facebook.

REPORT FROM THE U.S.—To say that social media sites such as Facebook are top of mind for hotel marketers might be an understatement. Indeed, the hotel industry has for years now struggled to get a firm grip on these ever-evolving digital platforms.

But during the first half of 2011, many companies began realizing real dollars by incorporating booking engines on their Facebook fan pages as a way to convert engaged customers.

In a 23 March article titled “Facebook leads to hotel room revenue,” HotelNewsNow.com contributor Christine Blank reported at the cusp of the phenomenon, which has since grown into an industry standard.

Companies such as Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Hilton Worldwide and Choice Hotels International all are incorporating booking engines on their Facebook pages, and often with favorable results.

“Certainly we see both traffic and revenue going up from the most prominent social-media sites like Facebook,” said Kelly Poling, VP of marketing and distribution for Choice, during an interview last week.

Not surprisingly, a wave of third-party providers has stepped in to help property-level owners implement booking capabilities on social media—Open Hotel, AccuBook and VFM Leonardo, just to name a few.

A hazy landscape
But not everyone is onboard with this new social-media approach to capturing rooms revenue. Michael Hraba, project manager and communications for Waterford Hotels & Inns and owner of San Francisco-based Hraba Hospitality Consulting, who in the previous article commented on the growth of real commerce on Facebook, has since changed his tune.

“Facebook growth has stalled, while Twitter has experienced more growth in the last nine months than in their past five years. The fact that Facebook has likely jumped the shark has constantly been a user level conversation, and it's likely that the corporate and marketing worlds, who are so heavily invested in it, will be the last to recognize,” he wrote in an email last week.

One of Hraba’s primary concerns is a lack of tangible success on the social-media platform. Hotel companies often skirt around the issue and decline to share concrete numbers.

Sherman, Connecticut-based PhoCusWright in March shared some related figures. “Over the course of 2009, we saw the volume of direct referrals from Facebook to hotel websites grow. The conversion rate was higher for Facebook than it was for TripAdvisor and other travel review sites,” Douglas Quinby, senior director of research for the travel research firm, was quoted as saying in the original article.

PhoCusWright does not plan to update those findings until 2012, however.

“I have begged our industry for data or success stories regarding Facebook. We don't see them,” Hraba said in his recent email. “But defining success is also difficult, because it's still the Wild West.”

Hraba also is concerned with Facebook’s segregated place on the Internet.
“The closed ecosystem of Facebook, versus Twitter or Google+, creates a severe handicap. As a closed network, Facebook has minimal interaction with very little original content,” he wrote. “It acts as a pass-through for the rest of the Internet. Viral videos, pictures also posted elsewhere, news articles—there is a very minimal amount of meaningful, site specific content. Add to that the constant (user interface) and privacy changes, and I don't know anyone, young or old, who are thrilled or excited by the experience of Facebook.”

The consultant has a more favorable opinion of Twitter and Google+, which allow companies to find new customers within defined market segments.

“It's much more interesting, especially if you start thinking how much Google helps your business with their search,” he said. “Twitter and Google+ allow you the opportunity to find people interested in your brand that were previously unaware of it. Facebook is filled with people that found you because they know you. I am not sure how much marketing time you would invest in preaching to the choir, but real return on investment and bookings will come from an open ecosystem.