Recently, a panel of digital marketing experts discussed the question 'What is the impact of social selling in hospitality?'.

Here is my take.

According to a recent survey by Beautiful Destinations, 77% of travelers use social media for initial travel inspiration, ahead of review sites, destination sites, search engines, meta travel sites, OTAs, etc.

No doubt, social media is a very important customer inspiration and engagement channel. If hoteliers do an excellent job in this channel, they will be able to inform, intrigue and engage potential customers in the Dreaming and Planning Phases and steer them toward the Booking Engine of the digital customer journey.

How about social commerce i.e. using social media as a distribution channel in hospitality?

Hospitality has been trying very hard to turn social media into a distribution channel all the way since 2005. For 20 years now! At my former company NextGuest, now part of Cendyn, we had the first social media marketing department in hospitality. We were THE pioneers in social media in hospitality.

We tried social commerce and all of the tricks of the trade: hotel mini-sites, booking engine widgets (when Facebook and the other social platforms allowed it), SEO, exclusive social media promotions, packages and discounts, content marketing, paid advertising, similar audience marketing, etc. For 20 tears, we’ve achieved great brand engagements, but occasional bookings here and there. In spite of all the efforts and marketing spend.

In other words, social commerce/social selling is not some new initiative and has existed for two decades now. Guess what percentage of hotel bookings come from social commerce? 50%? 30%? 20%? 10%? 5%? Nah, less than 1% of hotel bookings today can be attributed somehow as referrals from social media.

Social media affects travel planning, no doubt about it. But so do the search engines. Review sites. Metasearch. AI search. Display advertising. TV. Word-of-mouth. The question is, in which phase of the digital customer journey is the influence of social media most impactful? The last 20 years have given us the answer: in the Dreaming and Planning Phases, not in the Booking Phase.

Why? Social media is not perceived as a booking channel by the traveling public. An inspiration and engagement channel in the Dreaming and Planning Phases of the digital customer journey- yes, by all means! A booking channel - no! Booking travel is far, far more complex than that.

In hospitality the digital customer journey is like a meandering river and goes through muktitude of touchpoints (48 as oer Google Research) - hotel websites, OTAs, apps, search engines, social media platforms, AI search, metasearch sites, online travel and destination guides, review sites, etc. - before the customer makes a hotel booking.

Max Starkov
Hospitality & Online Travel Tech Consultant & Strategist

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