Abstract

     Digital marketing has been on the epicentre of many researches. However, there is the need to make clear which are the current trends of the Digital Marketing Strategies regarding luxurious hotels. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has seriously “damaged” the hospitality industry and it has affected the digital marketing strategies of hotels. The aim of this paper is the evaluation of the most recent applications of digital marketing and especially the social media used by luxurious hotels and their guests (such as Facebook, Trip-advisor). The outcome of the research indicates that social media play a key role on the marketing of luxurious hotels. More specifically, a hotel should take into serious consideration the reviews made on social media by customers. A review can leverage a hotel but also it can doom its reputation. For this reason, the practitioners must give special attention on the reviews that the guests post on social media. The methodology of the paper is literature review. Hence, it will rely on publications. The authors have collected publications from various academic databases, such as SCOPUS, by using the appropriate keywords. The publications were selected based on how relative are with the purpose of this paper. To sum up, the hotel industry has to face a major challenge due to COVID-19 crisis. This crisis, which is an ongoing phenomenon, is expected to change the way that hotels are copying with. One of the changes that the hotel should take into consideration is which strategy will use on social media. This paper has relied on existing theories and speculations that have been made by several authors and they have not been cross-checked with primary researches. Therefore, there is the need for more primary data coming from upcoming publications.

Introduction

     The tourist industry is important for the economy of many countries, such as Greece [1], [2], [3], [4]. An important insight of tourism is the fact that during the past years it had developed a number of different approaches as far as hospitality is concerned as well as it had developed different models of tourist development [5]. At this point, there are surveys about which tourist development model can be the most effective and it can bring wealth and sustainability for a tourist destination. For example, mass tourism has been heavily criticized for its consequences on the destinations [6], through [7] have argued that luxury-based tourism cannot generate wealth for the sum of the economy of a destination, like mass tourism can do, hence it is important for a destination to try a combination of tourist models. Nonetheless, the majority of the tourist industry experts as well as the academics conclude that luxury tourism can bring a number of benefits for a destination and also can contribute to its sustainability [8].

Conclusions

     The paper has examined the latest trends on digital marketing. As it is indicated by various researches [1], [77], [78], [75] the use of digital marketing can bring a number of benefits for a luxury hotel [79], [80]. Nonetheless, it is important to remark the fact that digital marketing, as it happens today mostly by social media, may hide a number of threats which can create a negative image of the hotel. Most of the threats derive by the negative comments on social media and the inability of the hotel’s management to convert the negative comments. Based on the findings of the above mentioned researches this is the most critical point for the digital campaign of a hotel. For this reason, there is a need for further future research which will help the academia and the practitioners to better understand the case of digital marketing and especially of the reviews made. Especially the current situation with the COVID-19 pandemic, means that digital marketing may play a crucial role for the recovery of the tourist industry [81], [82], [83]. For this reason, future research should direct to the use of social media and overall of digital marketing, in order to recover from the pandemic of COVID-19.