Social Media Marketing by Russian Luxury Hotels. Before, during and after the Trip

Scientific Study from the year 2015 in the subject Business economics - Marketing, Corporate Communication, CRM, Market Research, Social Media, grade: 65, European Business School London / Regent's College, language: English, abstract: Taking into account the growing importance of social media marketing for luxury hotels and lack of any research about social media marketing for luxury hotels in Russia, the following research aim and objectives were proposed: Research aim: To reveal the approaches to social media marketing Russian luxury hotels use before, during and after the trip, find the patterns of using social media and aggregator websites by their clients and provide recommendations based on the collected data. Research objectives: 1) To reveal and critically evaluate how Russian luxury hotels implement social media, user-generated content and aggregator websites in their marketing activities: a) By interviewing specialists on social media marketing in Russia in the sphere of travel and tourism, including those working for outsource agencies; b) By interviewing the representatives of Russian luxury hotels. 2) To reveal and critically evaluate how the customers of Russian luxury hotels use social media and aggregator websites by surveying 40 frequent customers of Russian luxury hotels. 3) To provide recommendations on how to increase the effectiveness of implementation social media by luxury hotels in Russia during the three stages of luxury hotel's customer experience: before, during and after the trip: a) By reflecting on the information about the prominent foreign case studies; b) By analysing the recommendations of the specialists on social media marketing in Russia in the sphere of travel and tourism; c) By synthesising the information revealed from the analysis of the data collected for objective 1 and 2 and information from the prominent foreign case studies.