Solutionz Media, a new venture by travel industry veterans Chicke Fitzgerald and Tiffany Topcik, partnered with GuestCentric Systems to go after business from independent hotels looking to enter into and/or monetize their social media efforts.
Solutionz Media, a unit of the Solutionz Group, will do much of the consulting and strategizing for independent hotels as they implement GuestCentric Systems' Customer Engagement Platform, which was an entry in PhoCusWright's recent Travel Innovation Summit in Orlando.
The platform, available in Software as a Service mode for a monthly flat fee, contains marketing and distribution components, including social media monitoring and promotions.
Topcik, managing partner of Solutionz Media and a former HEDNA president, says by using the combined services of GuestCentric Systems and Solutionz Media, which offers a reputation audit, hotels will be able to get their promotions onto Facebook and Twitter and then consumers will be able to click into the booking process.
"And, then that customer can post or tweet about that booking, creating even further awareness of the hotel," Topcik says. "Until now a hotel could post a link to another booking tool and it was a one-way conversation."
I think we'll see many of these types of co-marketing partnerships emerge over the next year. Social-media monitoring and marketing is hot, and tech firms will be looking to expand relationships in verticals like travel as they team with consultants with a track record of industry involvement.
And, hotels will be seeking tech parnters which can prove they can deliver social media acumen and ROI.
There were no launch partners for the Solutionz Media-GuestCentric Alliance, but Topcik says "there are many discussions under way."