Is it ethical to use a guest's social media following as an incentive to promote a hotel, in exchange for lower rates?
Quote from Valerie Castillo, vice president of marketing for TrustYou, in an article on PhocusWire this week.
When it comes to guest personalization, price is only one piece of the puzzle
The question is one that is at the heart of the "influencer" (aka travel blogger) movement in digital marketing, and it is certainly not exclusive to hotels.
There are two elements to this debate: the automation of such a process into the booking technology and shopping path; and the consumer-facing impact of favoring one group over another.
The idea that those with a substantial following on social media can help lure people to a particular product in the travel industry has been in play for a long time.
Bloggers would receive favorable rates, large discounts or free use of a service if they mentioned their involvement on social networks - in the hope that "fans" or followers would be suitably inspired to take a look when they next sought out their options for a trip.
The concept has become even more important to marketers and popular with the rise of celebrities using sites such as Instagram, effectively becoming brand ambassadors.
Whether that influence is valuable in the long term is difficult to determine, and perhaps hotels or airlines are happy with that short, sharp increase in awareness that an endorsement gives them.
But to make it part of an ongoing strategy within the distribution and pricing for a service, rather than a marketing-led initiative, is a trickier one to quantify.
Regulatory concerns aside around data, as noted by Castillo, the danger lurks in the idea that those with large social media followings have some kind of significant sway over the, well, influence of other customers.
This is an especially important consideration to have when it comes to business travelers.
It seems wrong to measure social media influence, by its very nature an immediate, in-the-moment type of activity, against the arguably more substantial impact that a higher-spending corporate customer might have on their colleagues and contacts over time if they like a particular product.
Perhaps travel brands should consider the customer life cycle of all their travelers, with a range of difference ways they can influence others, rather than the short-termist view of pandering to those with a healthy number of connections on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook et al.
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