I was in Toronto last week to attend the Online Revealed Canada (ORC) which was collocated with Hotel Association of Canada Conference (HAC) in the Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel. Both these events are doing a world of good for the Canadian hospitality industry.
This being my second year at the event, I find a definite evolvement in the online hospitality community of the region. Last year I presented on Maximizing Online Distribution and this time I noticed a better grasp and understanding for online activities within the overall distribution and revenue strategy. This was not only in the area of working with OTAs strategically and the billboard effect, but also the interaction in social media.
With over 500 hoteliers present, the main topics of discussion revolved around hotel distribution channel analysis, social media monitoring, and changing consumer behavior, among others. Leonard Brody, President, Clarity Digital Group delivered an excellent keynote speech which planted the seeds for what’s coming next.
I had the pleasure of being a panelist for the Social Media Monitoring session. The discussion was focused on exploring various tenets of Social Media monitoring and its effectiveness. Much has been spoken about the need to measure ROI on social media. We continued that dialogue to further understand how social media measures against other marketing channels and the tools available for the same.
We shared our thoughts on how to get started, creating internal buy-in, basic Must-dos, monitoring through Google Alerts, Tweet Reach etc. Another important point of discussion was whose baby is Social Media – Marketing, PR or Webmaster! What ensued was a lively discussion and a good show.
Well done HAC and ACOC!! Kudos 😉
Casey Davy is VP Sales – EMEA at eRevMax and is responsible for sale of RateTiger products in the region. He is based out of London, UK and can be reached at caseyd@ratetiger.com