Abstract

General Background: The hospitality industry significantly contributes to the global economy, with hotels playing a crucial role in employment and revenue generation. However, maintaining a stable development and high occupancy rate in an increasingly competitive market remains a challenge. Specific Background: Marketing and advertising are essential tools for sustaining growth in the hotel industry. The rapid shift towards digitalization and changing consumer behaviors post-pandemic necessitate innovative marketing approaches to attract and retain customers. Knowledge Gap: While various studies have explored the role of marketing in hospitality, there is limited research on the effectiveness of emerging strategies such as AI-driven personalization, influencer collaborations, and user-generated content in hotel marketing. Aims: This study analyzes the significance of marketing and advertising in the development of the hotel industry and examines contemporary strategies that drive success in a post-pandemic landscape. Results: The findings highlight that SEO positioning, online advertising, influencer marketing, and AI-driven personalization are key factors in enhancing customer engagement, brand visibility, and revenue optimization. Furthermore, the study underscores the increasing importance of safety-focused marketing, user-generated content, and digital advertising in responding to evolving consumer preferences. Novelty: This research synthesizes existing knowledge while emphasizing the latest digital marketing trends and post-pandemic strategies that have not been widely examined in the context of hotel marketing. Implications: The study suggests that hotel businesses must adopt innovative marketing techniques to remain competitive in a digitalized and consumer-driven market. Given the reliance on secondary data, future research should incorporate primary data sources, such as surveys and case studies of specific hotel chains, to provide a more detailed understanding of marketing effectiveness across different regions and economic contexts.

Highlights:

1. Digital Marketing – SEO, influencers, and AI boost hotel visibility.
2. Post-Pandemic Trends – Safety, UGC, and personalization drive bookings.
3. Future Research – Case studies needed for deeper marketing insights.

Keywords: Hotel industry, marketing strategies, digital advertising, consumer engagement, post-pandemic trends

Introduction

In every industry and particular business, a well-planned and effective marketing strategy is very critical to showcase existence in the competitive market, attract as many customers as possible, and ultimately return them again as loyal ones. The hospitality industry is no exception from this perspective. As marketing expert Pankaj Giroti says Marketing is important as it drives product awareness that a Hotel / Resort is selling a product or service and it cultivates brand credibility, builds trust among target customers [1-3]. It can be noticed the intrinsic role of advertising and marketing in the hotel industry by the need for the best marketing strategies and sales boost in the sector that led to the establishment of The Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International [4-7]. The association provides hotel professionals & their partners with tools, insights, and expertise to fuel sales, inspire marketing, and optimize revenue [8-11].

This research proposes to analyze the role of marketing and advertising in hospitality settings, particularly in the hotel industry. The aim of writing this paper is to analyze the role that marketing plays in the development of the hotel industry in the current time; the way marketing has been changed in recent years and post-pandemic marketing strategies that are impacting to the development of the industry globally.

Bibliography

In the research on the importance of marketing in businesses Jaiswal defines the term “Marketing’ as a set of activities aiming to make people aware of your products and services and persuade them to buy” [5]. While advertising is the most common way of marketing, it also involves consumer research, product design, as well as other aspects. However, he mentions the fact that sales do not fall under marketing, instead, sales are an outcome of marketing.

The Value of Marketing to Hotel Businesses

Effective consumer engagement: it is required to have consumer involvement in businesses and marketing is a used one of the effective tools in this regard.

Building and keeping a reputation: developing and continuing hotel's management is based on its reputation. In this, marketing seems to be a strategy for developing a company's brand equity.

Sales Boost: increasing the possibility of increased sales is made possible through marketing, which employs a variety of methods to advertise goods and services. Happy consumers naturally become brand ambassadors for a business.

Remaining relevant: Marketing supports keeping up positive relationships. That is the reason why marketing and advertising are playing a crucial role in developing the hospitality industry as a whole, and hotels also effectively have been applying different strategies from market research to AI technologies that automatically deal with customer requests easily.

According to the research study of SetUpMyHotel, creating an appropriate marketing mix of hotels is very significant [8]. A marketing mix is used to indicate the several marketing variables used by the sales team to target specific hotel guests or focus on market segments. The hotel should have the right facilities/services, identify good promotional strategies (both online and offline ads), and finally with the right pricing [13].

According to Kim Campbell’s review of Hotel Advertising strategies, hoteliers have to take some action steps to reach the best-targeted campaigns for their hotels [1].

Methods

The research study used secondary data taken from external internet sources, mainly research studies, online journals, and global marketing and tourism statistics. During the process of work, these sources have been carefully analyzed and concluded in the main parts:

•the hotel industry marketing,

•its importance in developing the industry globally, and

•how new trends of advertising are being implemented by hotel chains around the world.

Result and Discussion

Hotel marketing has a key role in helping to attract more online bookings and optimize the revenue of businesses. For the most part, the marketing messages are how customers will become aware of an exact hotel location, facilities, and services offered, which leads of understanding the business’s core values and USP (unique selling proposition). The most used way of marketing hotels is online advertising. To target the right people, hotels in many countries are trying their best to use their online presence effectively. Based on the research study conducted by IHCS some of the elements of online hotel marketing are included below [8]:

SEO Positioning

It’s one of the most effective tools for driving traffic to the website. The biggest advantage is that after its first implementation, it continues to generate revenue and its results last throughout time.

Online Ads

Creating paid ad campaigns is a fundamental technique for gaining exposure, directing quality traffic to the website, and converting it into direct reservations. A great example of it is the marketing campaign ‘Feel the Hamptonality’ created by the Hilton chain.

Latest Hotel Marketing Trends

Indeed, many marketing specialists believe in utilizing the latest hotel marketing trends that are connected to the digital world of 2022. Studies by Revfine found that hotel marketing trends have changed as a result of the outbreak of COVID. Some of the following are the most important ones to apply for hotels in targeting their customers online [7]:

1.Highlighting Safety in Hotel Marketing

According to the author of Revfine one of the biggest trends within hotel marketing is connected to the increased requirement to highlight safety measures and hygiene within the marketing content of hotels due to the Pandemic cases the world people faced in the past few years. It is advised to create hygiene measures and safety policies that influence customers’ minds when making booking decisions based on ads hotels represent online. Marketing advertising efforts need to be communicated on hotels’ websites, on third-party platforms, in emails and elsewhere.

2.Affiliate Marketing/Advertising via Influencers

Influencer marketing in hotel development is one of the admired advertising strategies in current times. As Laura Fredericks points out “Through affiliate marketing, people known as ‘affiliates’ encourage others to book stays or meetings at your hotel in exchange for a commission. Affiliates are often blog authors, niche travel experts, or social media influencers with a robust and engaged following on platforms like Instagram and YouTube”.

3.Focusing on User-Generated Content Online

When it comes to the hotel industry, user-generated content (UGC) refers to online content that is created and shared by customers on different platforms like Booking.com, Tripadvisor, Google, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram and so much more. They might be customer reviews, video blogs, feedbacks, comments, and photos made UGC is advised to take care of the user-generated content to create a great sales harness.

4.Personalized Marketing

Personalization is achieved through data collection, analysis, digital automation, and lead generation to provide marketing content for individual users who might be interested in the product and services hotels offer.

5.Artificial Intelligence (AI) Marketing

Customer service interactions are considered as a major part of the contemporary hotel marketing mix, simultaneously AI (artificial intelligence) nowadays plays an important role here. For instance, CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and AI-powered chatbots are being used to provide quick responses via live chat functions on hotel websites 24/7, which eliminates slow responses and increases the quality of online service. Furthermore, AI in hotel businesses does not only include this but can extend its scope to other digital services, such as faster data analysis (in management and marketing), personalized ads, and customer service robots inside of hotels.

Result

The study analysis and findings summarize the significant role of marketing and advertising not only in the hotel industry but in the whole Tourism and Hospitality all around the world by impacting to the development of many businesses that are driving economies constantly.

Though many marketing specialists agree on the fact that there is some similarity of the marketing mix of hotels, they suggest implementing upcoming trends of the digital world to play competitively in the market. These strategies include basic steps for hotels to show their presence: SEO Positioning, Email marketing, social media ads, and networking on the internet.

Furthermore, the study analyzed some of the effective post-pandemic marketing approaches to boost the process of reviving and attracting guests to hotels after a big gap of seclusion. They are: Targeting customers by revealing safety measures on their marketing campaign, cooperating with affiliates (influencers) on many distinct platforms, paying attention on UGC along with personalized marketing, and applying new technologies of AI on management and marketing to generate more prospects as well as to provide high-quality online services for customers. It is interesting to note that having visual enhancements of augmented reality of hotels which allow visitors to have deeper look on the services and products they are aiming to buy is another demanded marketing strategy of the current hospitality and tourism industry.

The study might be useful for many hotel businesses to get more idea of how marketing and advertising play an important role to level up the sales and is considered effective success factor for companies’ blossom overall.

The scope of this paper is limited with the secondary external data, which creates a need for deep exploration of this matter in certain destination and hotel chains. It is recommended to use this paper by hoteliers of our country to get a clear picture of the significance of advertising in the hotel business and accordingly develop the latest advertising trends in their marketing campaigns.

Conclusion

The findings of this study underscore the critical role of marketing and advertising in driving the growth and sustainability of the hotel industry within the broader hospitality sector. Effective marketing strategies, including SEO positioning, online advertising, influencer collaborations, and AI-driven personalization, have emerged as pivotal tools in enhancing customer engagement, brand visibility, and revenue optimization. Additionally, post-pandemic marketing approaches, such as emphasizing safety measures and leveraging user-generated content, highlight the industry's adaptability to evolving consumer preferences. The implications of these findings suggest that hotel businesses must continuously innovate their marketing strategies to maintain a competitive edge in an increasingly digitalized and consumer-driven landscape. However, given the study’s reliance on secondary data, future research should explore primary data sources, such as surveys or case studies of specific hotel chains, to provide a more nuanced understanding of marketing effectiveness in different regional and economic contexts.

References

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