Abstract
Hotel companies are struggling to keep up with the rapid consumer adoption of social media. Although many companies have begun to develop social media programs, the industry has yet to fully explore the potential of this emerging data and communication resource. The revenue management department, as it evolves from tactical inventory management to a more expansive role across the organization, is poised to be an early adopter of the opportunities afforded by social media. We propose a framework for evaluating social media-related revenue management opportunities, discuss the issues associated with leveraging these opportunities and propose a roadmap for future research in this area.
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Notes
The validity of customer reviews is a legitimate concern for hotel organizations. On the one hand, it could be argued that, unless some means is employed to identify false reviews and discount them from a sentiment analysis, this analysis will yield erroneous results. However, it could also be argued that it is what consumers believe, their ‘reality’ (whether based on false reviews or not), that really counts. If consumers regard false reviews as credible, then management needs to understand the content of those reviews such that appropriate strategies can be deployed to offset any negative consumer reaction they may engender.
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eleads the hospitality and travel global practice at SAS. She holds a PhD from Cornell University. Her team is responsible for designing analytic software solutions for the hospitality and travel industries. Her work focuses in particular on the integration of revenue management with marketing, sales and social media.
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Noone, B., McGuire, K. & Rohlfs, K. Social media meets hotel revenue management: Opportunities, issues and unanswered questions. J Revenue Pricing Manag 10, 293–305 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1057/rpm.2011.12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/rpm.2011.12
Keywords
- revenue management
- social media
- hotels
- marketing
- pricing
- consumer behavior