Choice Hotels targets Social Media for Hotels

Aug. 22, 2011 - PRLog -- Choice Hotels targets Social Media for Hotels

Social media is here to stay and on the rise. Many business sectors have been cautious to jump into the social media space due to concerns around brand, content and loss of control. Hotels in particular have been slow or very conservative in the adaptation of social media. This has been further compounded by the fact that running a hotel for many owners and managers is a 24/7 role, with little time for marketing or online distractions. Choice Hotels is providing comprehensive education and knowledge on social media for hotels to its Australasia franchisees in its upcoming regional conference.

Why Social Media?

While there is still a lot of hype surrounding the application of social media as a viable business solution for hotels, smart hotel owners and managers are quickly discovering the benefits of online marketing, customer engagement, alternate sales channels, cheaper production costs, faster distribution and simple automation and follow up with guests. Hotels of all sizes, from large capital city accommodation providers to smaller owner operator regional hotels are reaping the benefits of simplified and accessible social media solutions.

Unique business and marketing view for the use of Social Media

Significantly different from advice and strategy offered by the technology and design experts, Choice Hotels Australasia have engaged the services of a former senior, regional business executive who developed social media and online marketing expertise when he failed to find effective solutions for his own business division. Tony Ridley found that there were simply too many conflicting opinions and outdated or vested interests when approaching both social media management and online marketing. Therefore, due to a lack of practical business applications on offer, he sought out and developed his own, effective social media and online marketing solutions for businesses.

Choice Hotels Australasia 2011 Regional Conference

Choice Hotels Australasia, as part of their 2011 regional conference for franchisees and owners, will offer two premium education and practical workshops on social media for hotels run by Tony Ridley, director of both Search Engine Marketing Melbourne and Social Media for Hotels online solutions.

These workshop and education sessions will be highly targeted towards social media for hotels, providing the how, what, where and when for owners, managers and marketers.

Inclusive of the social media for hotels sessions will be:

How to conduct online competitive research for hotels
How to assess the strength and opportunity of online sales potential
How to select and enter key online markets for hotels
How to create an effective social media network
How to manage and distribute social media content and information effectively
Which social media channels to use and why,
How to save thousands using social media for online hotel marketing, and
How to get found on search engines using social media for hotels.

Competing with alternate travel booking and hotel search tools

Tony Ridley (http://tony-ridley.com/), following the recent launch of Social Media for Hotels ( http://social-media-for-hotels.com/)(a division of Search Engine Marketing Melbourne) (http://search-engine-marketing-melbourne.com/) online solutions, will also demonstrate to Choice Hotels Australasia franchisees how to overcome and compete with alternate online search tools provided by the growing number of online travel booking and management sites, by using social media for hotels.

About the presenter, Tony Ridley. Tony Ridley is an experienced senior international business executive. Having spent the past 6 years in Singapore, Tony has recently returned with his family to Australia. Following a decade of marketing and online business promotion, Tony discovered that much of the online marketing advice (in particular, social media) was misleading and not relevant to actual business conversion and increased sales. Following numerous frustrations and failed attempts, he refined a more business-centric, online marketing and social media management system for the fast and simple implementation of businesses of all sizes.