Showing posts with label social media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social media. Show all posts

Do You Have Owner Engagement?

10/21/2015 Unknown
The hospitality industry chatter these days is all about maintaining owner, member and guest engagement. An engaged owner/member/guest is a loyal owner/member/guest. How do you know if your owners are engaged with your resort? According to much of the current research, there are a few behavior traits that are representative of highly engaged owners. Some of these traits will be obvious to you when you read them, but you may not have thought about them enough, nor acted upon them as much as you should to maintain engagement. 

Your Owners are Engaged When:

  • They loyally keep coming back to you. They are the owners who visit your resort time after time, who book weeks in advance, and who are always current in their fees.
  • Engaged owners tell their friends and family members, colleagues and new acquaintances about the resort. They use their social media networks to display pictures of their vacation and to broadcast to all about the great time they had at the resort. They bring their friends and family members with them on vacation, and those friends and family often decide to become owners too. Engaged owners may be your best salespeople!
  • Engaged owners give you needed feedback. When you send out newsletters, e-blasts and posts to social media, your engaged owners and guests respond to your questions and requests. They appreciate you telling them about all the good things you are doing for them. In short, they are invested in your brand and are vital contributors to the promotion of your brand. They also may have good suggestions on what you can do to improve and to maintain their loyalty. 

Treat Them Well

Don't ever let the lure of making more new sales ever cause you to forget about your current owners. Be constantly on the look-out for ways to engage with owners. 

Communicate

Communication is key in any relationship. In the timeshare industry it should start at the moment of sale and continue consistently throughout the owner/resort relationship. Use all forms of communication that are available, and match the communication to the type of message you are sending, the person who is receiving the information, and the particular occasion.  

Use social media tweets, Facebook, Snapchat for sending quick resort updates and pictures of special events. Owners need to know about all the good things you are doing for them. E-mail a newsletter with notices of improvements, added activities or special owner events. Don't forget phone calls and personal written notes offering congratulations, expressing sorrow for a loss, or just thanking them for being such a good member of your timeshare community. This type of communication may be just what an owner needs. 

Know Your Owners

Communication can only be effective if you know your owner. Make sure that you and your employees consistently engage with your owners. Taking the time to really know your owners, to know their family, their likes and dislikes, and staying aware of events happening in their lives, enables engagement and fortifies connections that can last for a lifetime. 
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Hark! What are Users of Social Media Saying About Timeshare?

8/05/2015 Unknown
Social media monitoring, one of the latest marketing tools, is getting much attention lately. One user is the timeshare industry's trade association, ARDA. As part of ARDA's Social Listening Initiative, the organization is using online listening tool Radian6 to monitor social media news from sites such as Facebook and YouTube, plus news, blogs, forums and more, to find out the chatter about timeshare. The results are published in the Hark Report.

Hark Report

How does it work? The listening tool monitors unsolicited reviews of what individuals are saying about the timeshare industry. Keywords, like "value" or "love" along with "timeshare" are searched and then run through a calibrated industry profile. ARDA then weeds through relevant posts to find digital conversations that reveal what people are feeling and sharing about timeshare. As a timeshare executive, you can use the information to adjust your marketing strategies. As an owner you may find valuable suggestions and answers to your questions.

The Tide is Turning to Positive

The feedback from social listening shows that the tide of attitude about timeshare is getting more positive. People are realizing the benefits of timeshare owning and they're sharing it. Here are some of the notable conclusions and relevant comments gathered from the data:

  • Timeshare makes vacationing a financial possibility for larger families. This was posted on the Forum Post, "We bought for a NICE and large enough space for our big family. We wanted nice, we wanted convenient, and we wanted LOCATION. We look at our timeshare as prepaying our trips. So is it worth the money? Yes, because we have a family of six, and are adopting again and my mom and her partner plan to join us on a trip or two. To stay in a nice resort that would hold ALL of us would cost a fortune."
  • Location continues to be of significant importance and there is still appeal in going to the same place every year. From Facebook, an owner posted, "We've loved going back to Maui every year. The kids love going to the beach and swimming at all the different pools at the resort. It’s just a fantastic."
  • People want to know how to use their timeshare after the prime "family vacation" years. Here are questions posted to the DIS Board Forum, "Still thinking about long term family changes and vacation needs as time goes on BEFORE purchasing. I have 2 small children now and know they will grow and change. Do you mind sharing how your family has changed and if you still enjoy DVC now? Would you do it again? Do you enjoy going without kids? Have you traded in to try RCI?"
  • Timeshare employees remain an important, integral part of the overall vacation experience for guests and owners, as unique and interesting people. From a personal blog, "I spent a couple of days on Kauai and stayed in Princeville because I could use a timeshare for free. I did no planning for this island. The timeshare had a concierge on duty, so I stopped in a couple of times to find help making plans for the day. Enter Kai—one of the concierges, and a Kauai native. She has lived all over the world and lives an adventure lifestyle when not helping people like me navigate their way through her island."
  • When people explain the benefits of timeshare, they consider it the best of all worlds.  From a Forum Post, "For personal travel, if it’s just the two of us or our immediate family, I prefer staying in privately rented condos or timeshares vs. staying in a hotel. I own a Westin timeshare and really love their resorts. I love that they blend the conveniences of a condo (including separate bedrooms and TV's, kitchen, washer/dryer, and grills) with the amenities of a hotel, such as a great pool, hot tub, tennis court, and poolside service. That IMO, is the epitome of my type of vacation."
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Social Media Use Earns Guests Rewards - Resorts & Hotels Gain Brand Loyalty

9/24/2014 Unknown
We recently stayed at a hotel property in Northern California and just by liking them on Facebook, we received a free bottle of Napa wine. Now, in case you think we did it just for the wine, we did enjoy our stay and it wasn’t any effort to like them on Facebook. Hotels and timeshare resorts are more than ever before using social media to connect with guests and to reward their loyalty with various perks and points when they use social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. In addition, it’s great advertising for the resort or hotel.  Guests and members posting positive reviews and pictures they've taken at the resort, are often viewed as more authentic and believable than more traditional types of advertising.

Major Chains Embrace Social Media

Major hospitality chains are expanding their rewards programs beyond just the reserving of a room. Members and guests are now more likely to be rewarded for certain behaviors and actions.  Many of these hotel groups have coordinating programs with their vacation ownership arms.
Starwood’s Preferred Guest Program and Caesars Entertainment's Total Rewards programs have come together in a strategic partnership. Members of both programs have the ability to both earn and redeem Starpoints and Total Rewards when staying at either of the chains’ resorts.  Mark Vondrasek, Starwood’s SR VP of Distribution, Loyalty and Partnerships, explained that through the new partnership, "we can fuel our members’ passions by creating exclusive opportunities that allow guests to experience the best of Vegas and beyond, from world-class restaurants to famous shows, shopping and nightlife."
With Marriot Reward Plus Points, members can earn points by doing what they were probably already doing anyway. Rewards are earned by checking in on Facebook, uploading pictures to Instagram and tweeting about their resort stay. Extra points are added for following participating hotels’ Twitter and Instagram accounts or re-tweeting content form the Marriott Rewards Twitter account.

Social Loyalty Platforms

If a resort or hotel would rather, there are companies that can handle the setup and maintenance of the resort’s loyalty program. These companies include I.C.E. and Leisure Loyalty.

Timeshare Advisor

Timeshare Advisor advertises itself as one-stop website for the resort industry and timeshare developers and managers. It provides them the opportunity to showcase their properties to current and potential timeshare owners. On the Timeshare Advisor site, you'll find more than 5,000 worldwide timeshare resorts with pictures and reviews. Their Go and Tell points program, makes it easy for members to share their personal resort experience with their own reviews and pictures. Members receive points for participation which qualifies them for prizes.

Loyalty 360

The Loyalty Marketer's Association, Loyalty 360, sums it all up best with this quote, "As companies continue to strive for the ultimate customer relationship, loyalty marketing is continually evolving to include engagement marketing, customer relationship management, experiential marketing, voice of the customer, data analytics and more. No matter the industry or size of a company, a loyalty strategy should be a top priority."
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