Japanese hotels on Facebook:

Luxury and chain Hotel industry has had a boom of late in Tokyo. At the same time many hotel companies are saying to their marketing team, "launch a Facebook page" and "get on social media" without giving them the proper budget, time or training to do it right.

Recently I wondered what makes a good Hotel Facebook page? What is the market make-up? In Japan, why do so many hotel Facebook pages seem to be disconnected from the larger brand? Why do

Why? The traditional marketing department has been put in charge of the system without understanding who to target and how to use it to generate sales. They are still thinking and working in the old hierarchy and thought process. But one of the key problems is they talk to the mirror and not to a wide audience.

Most hotels in Japan depend on agents to sell rooms so they feel they don't need to appeal to the traveler - that's left up to the agencies. Instead the marketing and sales teams focus on selling bridal services and restaurant events. For conferences, conventions, and corporate accounts, the sales are done directly with only materials made by marketing.

In recent discussions with a hotel looking to start a Facebook page, I diagnosed what is wrong and right with hotel Facebook pages in Japan. What resulted was a grading system.

There are two categories of hotel in Japan: Global Brands and Domestic Chains.

The Global Brand is one where the hotel has properties in other countries. These would be Hilton, Hyatt, Intercontinental, Nikko, Ritz-Carlton, Swissotel, Mandarin Oriental, Shangri-la, Peninsula, Westin, Four Seasons, Marriott and Okura (to name a few).

The domestic properties are Japan-based and do not have overseas facilities like Tokyu Hotels.

There are basically six kinds of hotel user: 

1) Business traveler

2) Corporate Travel Manager

3) Family

4) tourist

5) event planner

6) wedding couple. 

The needs of each of these people should to be addressed on a website and on social channels. The problems is that too often hotels don't even address these on their website. They don't even talk about their customers but about themselves and how great they are at service. You know...

"We provide the highest quality of service in our hotel ranking."

I wonder if there are any hotels who don't say this?

Japanese Facebook pages are dominated by two types of content

1) photos of bridal services

2) photos of restaurants.

After reviewing 3-months of content from 20 different Global Brand properties, I found that no one targeted all six kinds of guests and very very few had links going back to their website. If they did have links, they went to a static page with no calls to action. I'd venture to guess that those that clicked the links either didn't know what to do or bounced quickly back to Facebook or someplace else.

Why does this happen?

Simply put corporate says, "you need a page". So they hire someone who knows Facebook and technology but lacks hospitality or marketing knowledge. Another route is that they use someone already in the office who knows Facebook, traditional marketing and hospitality but lacks the technical understanding to be effective.

The system around them knows how it works on a personal level but may not fully understand how it works from a business side or the staff isn't able to connect social media to sales or even increase traffic to the site. In other words their actions are not quantified. Social media actions is only lightly connected to the overall marketing and sales of a property.

New platforms allow for better social interactions and with new listening tools, hotels can address needs quickly and easily. That said I wonder how hotels will use new platforms open to business  like Instagram to interact, attract clients and address the unique needs of the 6 customer categories.

* this was originally posted in 2013. I no longer do independent consulting on social media strategy for the hospitality industry in Japan.