A study into the use of social media to promote the image and values of luxury hotel brands

The research aim of this project is to gain a greater understanding of how luxury hotel brands can use social media to promote the luxury brand image and values. This research will explore the gap that has been found through the literature that suggest that there is a clear contradiction in the core values of luxury against the Internet. The research strategy was a mixed methods approach using Netnography and semi-structured interviews. The interviews were with those responsible for the social media within the selected hotels. The Netnography data was collected from Twitter and TripAdivsor. Overall, 8 hotels and 1 blogger were used in this study. The study found that a luxury brand maintaining a presence on social media is not at the detriment of the brands image and values. The results of this study challenge the conflicts that have been discussed in the literature. However, the findings do suggest that the most important factor is in finding a balance for instance a balance between ensuring a luxury brand is accessible to increase desirability but still ensuring that the targeting is refined to maintain exclusivity. The implications of this study are based around social media management of luxury brands. The most important implication is that luxury brands need to ensure they are taking a reactive approach in order to protect the image and values that are being promoted through social media. Further implications include ensuring processes are in place to measure and monitor brand image and values as well as a process to react against any potential negative comments that could be detrimental to the brand