The Customer in Control; The New Engagement Technology

Social media has taken over the way the hospitality industry does business.  There is more information coming out of the web, onto your smart phones than can be processed.  In order for the hospitality to keep up with the trends of today they have to hire someone that monitors Facebook, Twitter and other social networks.  Smaller hospitality industries cannot afford to hire someone to maintain the daily activity of those sites. In order to reach the hospitality industries target market they must post to social media. This article gives a few resources for the smaller hotels, restaurants and such to keep up with the fast pace social technology. There is a company that will develop a mobile phone app for just $49.99 with a monthly maintenance fee of $4.99.  Most people search the web on their phone, but if your phone is not mobile friendly you will not be found.  There is a free website that smaller hospitality industry owners can go to and check to see if their site is mobile friendly.  There are a few other tools out there that will post messages for you across several social medias.  There is also sites that check to see when the social networks have mentioned the hotel/restaurant name so you can respond with feedback. The small hospitality owner is not left out and these items will help them stay up with technology.

Verret, C. (2010, Spring). The Customer in Control. Retrieved 3 13, 2011, from Hospitality Upgrade: http://www.hospitalityupgrade.com/_files/File_Articles/HUSpr10_Verret_TheCustomerinControl.pdf