In the marketing and hospitality industry, things change at such an accelerated rate, that it’s hard to stay on top of the latest trends and technologies. To keep you in the loop, we’ve done the heavy lifting for you and invite you to take a look at our new monthly series, #HospitalityMarketingBuzz. This is a monthly roundup of fresh trends as they relate to the hospitality space. This includes new applications and platforms, feature updates on popular marketing platforms, and cutting-edge strategies to keep your business on par with what’s current. Stay in-the-know and show your colleagues that you’re not stuck in a flash-based, unresponsive world.

Hospitality Marketing – Tech Trends

Facebook Holiday Marketing

Tis the season! The big holiday stretch is upon us, and that means consumers are getting ready to rev up their spending habits. It’s no secret that the holidays are a peak time for hotel bookings and sales. While you may be using social media to promote your winter vacation campaigns and deals (and if you’re not, it’s time to get on that), now you can leverage the power of Facebook even more by using their new holiday story templates.

Did you know that 69% of people find stories on Facebook and Instagram to be a great way to discover and become familiar with new products or services? If you’ve ever been stuck in an hour-long Instagram story loop, you know that number might even be on the conservative side. Facebook, in keeping with the power of stories, has made four new holiday templates available to deck out your Instagram and Facebook feeds with even more attractive imagery and bite-size CTA’s. Each template is dedicated to a specific marketing objective:

  • Promote a product
  • Describe a product or service
  • Show product benefits
  • Highlight a message

Image Source: Facebook

To explore Facebook’s new story templates and get the lowdown on all the neat features that the platform is rolling out for the holidays, check out their newly released 2019 Holiday Marketing Guide.

TripAdvisor Gets an Ad Makeover

The powerhouse travel platform, TripAdvisor, just launched an exciting new advertising channel, TripAdvisor Connect. The best part? TripAdvisor is teaming up with third-party channels like Facebook and Instagram to provide more robust targeting parameters than ever before. TripAdvisor Connect ads merge audience data from multiple platforms so you can filter based on a person’s interests on TripAdvisor along with the standard targeting data provided by another site, like Facebook.

Image Source: Marketing Land

Not only will you get your ads to appear to a more highly qualified audience, but each ad is branded by TripAdvisor, which brings a lot of clout for those browsing the travel sphere. In fact, TripAdvisor states that “49% of travelers say that TripAdvisor inspired them to visit a new destination.” While the ads are branded with the TripAdvisor emblem, they will lead directly to a company’s website versus their TripAdvisor profile page, making it that much easier for a user to book.

Button Up On Compliance

While you may have seen the acronym GDPR floating around like a dark cloud, it’s time to start locking down on another more pressing privacy regulation — CCPA. CCPA stands for the California Consumer Privacy Act and is the Golden States version of Europe’s GDPR. The regulations will officially take effect on January 1, 2020, so if you haven’t read up on the requirements, now is the time, as businesses who are found to violate the act can face some hefty fines. 

Image Source: The Next Web

With data breaches happening worldwide, people are becoming more and more wary about sharing their data online, prompting consumer transparency to become an essential business standard. And while you may think your business isn’t affected by this act, think again, as “a website might only need 137 unique visitors from California per day to reach the threshold of 50,000 consumers”. If that just made your eyes glaze over, then you might want to pay attention to the next part.

The new CCPA regulations require that businesses better inform their consumers about how their personal information is being used and allow for ways for consumers to manage their personal information through acceptance or denial. Here are some key points you need to know:

  • Consumers must be able to easily know what personal data is collected by a company and why, as well as if the data is being shared with a 3rd party.
  • A business must allow a consumer to easily opt-out of the sale or sharing of their data.
  • A business must allow a consumer to request to delete their data and satisfy their request within a reasonable amount of time.

While the act goes into effect in less than three months, there are still alterations that are being made, so be sure to stay in the loop by checking out the CCPA website to follow the most recent changes.

Ready to step up your game and ensure your business stays up to date with all the latest #HospitalityMarketing Buzz? Subscribe to the Lure Agency Blog, ReveNews using the pop-up form on this page and get the latest updates and industry news sent directly to your inbox.