Hotel's success an online achievement

A new small- to medium-sized hotel, Metropoint Bangkok, has successfully adopted online social media as its key marketing channels.

Opened early last year at Bang Kapi, not far from Suvarnabhumi Airport, the budget hotel has an occupancy rate of 70 per cent of its 172 rooms.

Managing director Kasem Thianthongdee said that keeping "360-degree online marketing" in mind from day one had helped to achieve the high occupancy rate.

"Since we are a small- to medium-sized hotel, I realised that we needed to go online and reach out widely to find potential customers and to save costs with more effective marketing," he said.

Under his "360-degree online marketing" strategy, he began with the hotel's website - www.metropointbangkok.com - as the main front-end online "counter" for customers. Then, in the belief that potential customers would be using the Internet to seek hotel information and to book rooms, he adopted online marketing activities and tools, including search engine optimisation, Google AdWords and Google AdSense.

Kasem had no previous direct experience in the hotel business. However, his first business was a hosting service, and he gathered a lot of information about hotel operations from that company's customers, most of whom were hoteliers.

"The hotel business, by its very nature, is most suitable for online marketing. Its customers usually search for information and make bookings over the Internet. Our customers are out there, online, so we needed to be online to catch them," he said.

The Metropoint Bangkok has made online social media its main marketing channels, through which it campaigns for customers and conducts activities aimed at enhancing brand awareness. Kasem has been using Facebook and Twitter to accelerate bookings and to engage potential customers. He also uses the two popular networks for customer-relationship management, to keep in touch with the hotel's existing customers as well as attracting and engaging new customers.

Although the social media are free marketing channels that are considered most appropriate for small- and medium-sized businesses, using them effectively requires continuous effort, Kasem said.

He said hotels had to maximise revenue from limited resources - rooms and facilities - so they needed to attract more and more customers. With a limited marketing budget, he chose to build awareness of his hotel's brand and promote its services through the social networks by engaging people to take part in online activities.

For example, last year Kasem worked with a group of Twitter "influencers" to arrange what he believes was Bangkok's first seminar focusing on using Twitter as a marketing tool. That event helped to fix the Metropoint Bangkok Hotel in the minds of Twitter users in Thailand without spending any money.

"We try to have this kind of activity as often as possible. We look for collaboration with partners in the social media. There are many kinds of collaboration, such as offering free accommodation as prizes for winners," he said.

Kasem aims to lift the hotel's room occupancy rate to 90 per cent by the end of this year, by targetting local free independent travellers.

"These customers naturally use the Internet as a tool to seek the information and services they need. We need to be present there, ready for their choice. We use Facebook and Twitter to provide current information about the hotel, such as promotions, special campaigns and hotel activities, to those Internet users who are already our customers and to those who are not yet our customers," Kasem said.

He uses the social media to draw people back to the hotel's website, where all necessary information and services are available at all times. With this marketing strategy, the one-year-old hotel has already become quite well known among social-media users, he said.

Moreover, the hotel has also become involved with online communities such as Web boards, blogs and forums, to enhance its brand awareness. Instead of spending money on advertising, Kasem uses his advertising budget to support activities specific to each of the online communities.

"Adopting social media and online marketing may cost less money, but it requires huge efforts and resources, because we always have to be there [in the social networks], to interact with our friends. It needs quick, real-time responses if you want to engage your potential customers," he said.

He could not give specific figures for the impact of his social-media marketing on the hotel's revenue. However, Kasem said it had been a key strategy in helping Metropoint Bangkok - a start-up hotel ¬- to achieve a 70-per-cent occupancy rate in its first year of operation.