Social media marketing in the hospitality industry : is it worth the effort?

This paper explores the impact of hotel social media activity on potential reservations and revenue generation. It does this by firstly exploring the perceptions of senior hotel executives towards the ROI of hotel social media activity. Secondly by data mining hotel reservation data to examine the extent of social media engagement being undertaken by guests with a hotel prior to and post a reservation being made. Thirdly through an experiment using social media advertising to examine its impact on the behaviour of fans and non-fans. The research suggests that social media engagement and advertising do have a positive impact on hotel reservations and revenue generation