Hotel Public Relations & Marketing Case Studies

HOTEL USES TWITTER AS LUXURY MARKETING TOOL

Challenge
With constant discussion of a sluggish US economy in 2011 and media portrayal of Mexico as an unsafe destination for travelers, Mexico‟s tourism industry suffered a blow. The luxury sector was hit especially hard as many consumers found it difficult to justify nonessential travel.

After developing a personalized luxury‟ marketing concept and a series of mini indulgences, Marquis Los Cabos Resort in Mexico, recipient of the AAA Four Diamond and member of Leading Hotels of the World, and KWE Partners needed to successfully launch the campaign, designed to appeal the importance of value to the wealthy.

Objectives

• Reinforce the resort‟s luxury image which is vital to the continued success of a luxury brand
• Buttress this luxury image by partnering with other brands of a similar luxury cachet
• Go where customers are. Twitter users skew towards educated, upper income individuals, the very groups that luxury brands target
• Leverage the massive momentum of Twitter to kick-start social media buzz about Marquis Los Cabos‟ personalized luxury approach and its new mini-indulgences concept
• Increase number of followers in advance of promoting Twitter flash sales
• Build new relationships and harness the “know, like, trust” of industry social media influencers
• Strengthen Mexico‟s reputation as a safe destination among social media influencers in the travel industry

Tactics

• Initiated an international Tweet Up‟ event for Travelers‟ Night In (#TNI) - a fast-paced Tweetchat of travel experts and avid travelers. The community responds to the questions, sharing experiences, ideas and new strategies.
• Themed the event as a Mini-Indulgences remote #TNI weekend at Marquis Los Cabos, inviting top Twitter influencers with large followings to give the event maximum credibility and create a compelling reason for #TNI participants to be particularly drawn to that week‟s #TNI
• Created a series of events for influencers to generate more coverage and highlight hotel‟s different indulgences. Events ranged from private shopping tour of sponsor Luxury Avenue Los Cabos and treatments from the mini spa indulgence menu to a fine leather passport cover from sponsor Hartmann luggage. A sample of the resort‟s famed $1,000 Tequilas Premium Clase Azul tequila popsicle with gold flakes, considered the world‟s most expensive tequila pop (a KWE invention) was delivered during #TNI to maximize impressions
• Secured other luxury brands as co-sponsors, to benefit from their halo and contribute to added chat content
• Built Twitter buzz before and during the #TNI by
  • Encouraging Tweetup participants to tweet about their excitement about visiting the resort before the event
  • Encouraged participants to post images of the resort and its amenities before and after the event to keep buzz levels up
• Formulated 10 #TNI questions for tweeting travelers around the globe, including
  • Favorite hotel amenity
  • Most impressive hotel service
  • Fantasy travel experiences
• Steered #TNI discussions around the topic that Mexico as a safe and family-friendly vacation destination
• Created industry research/intelligent PR angles for print media after the Tweetup to generate offline media coverage

Results

• 14 million + impressions were cast, corresponding to 1.4 million+ unique impressions, a record-breaking number for the #TNI Tweetup; close to 4500 tweets were sent during the 90 minute event
• Reinforced Marquis Los Cabos‟ luxury brand and generated social media buzz about the resort
• Successfully launched the resort‟s customized luxury marketing program via social media
• Strengthened Mexico‟s reputation as a safe and family-friendly destination

*findings based on independent, third-party data. Stats pulled from 12:00pm Wednesday, May 18, 2011 to 11:50pm Friday, May 20, 2011