Global Update
Photos like this one , taken at Caresse , a Luxury Collection Resort & Spa , Bodrum in Turkey , will be shared with Beautiful Destinations ’ 8 million followers on Instagram .
Insta-gratIfIcatIon
Starwood ' s Luxury Collection Hotels & Resorts has teamed up with the largest travel influencer on Instagram to establish its properties as the “ destination authorities ” for its guests . Beautiful Destinations will train each Luxury Collection hotel to ingrain a " social first " mindset among its associates and inspire them to use Instagram to help tell the brand ’ s story .
“ Beautiful Destinations will help bring to life the authentic , indigenous experiences that make our hotels and destinations stand out ,” says Hoyt Harper II , global brand leader for The Luxury Collection .
The one-year partnership will expose the hotel brand to the 8 million ( and growing ) travelers who follow @ beautifuldestinations on Instagram , allowing The Luxury Collection to share its stories and engage with a much wider audience than ever before . At press time , The Luxury Collection had 27,000 followers on Instagram .
“ We chose Instagram as we are seeing more and more people turning to the platform to both find and share travel experiences ,” Harper explains . “ Instagram is also widely used among our guests for sharing their memorable experiences at our destinations . Year over year , we ' ve grown our Instagram 140 %, so our goal is to continue on this growth pattern and to tell the brand ' s story in an amplified way and engage with a larger audience .”
Although the influencer prides itself on sharing content with its followers , Beautiful Destinations also examines social media performance over specific periods of time to determine the common factors that contribute to growth . Its clients are provided with descriptive , predictive and prescriptive analytics to help them make better decisions that drive engagement and follower growth . In addition to analyzing previous posts , Beautiful Destinations strives to predict the engagement a post will receive to select the best-performing content .
“ Our approach is data driven , combined with relevant influencer marketing and content creation , which help brands grow their social media audience , reach and revenue ,” says Jeremy Jauncey , founder of Beautiful Destinations . Brittany Farb , associate editor
SLH , Boyen ’ S way
Small Luxury Hotels of the World ’ s ( SLH ) new CEO Filip Boyen is wasting no time wrapping his arms around his assignment as the brand celebrates its 25th anniversary with a renewed and rigorous focus on quality , development , technology and loyalty coined “ The SLH Way .”
Until recently the COO of Filip Boyen brings a
Belmond luxury hotels , Boyen member-preferred hotelier ' s says members are glad to have perspective to lead Small
an hotelier at the helm who will Luxury Hotels . increase inspections to at least once a year , which will likely lead to north of 30 hotels leaving the system . There is also a new mandate to only add hotels that will drive greater value to the system . The recent roster sat at 520 hotels in more than 80 countries .
At the company ’ s October member meeting in Marbella , Spain , Boyen debuted an ambitious five-year strategy with a 26-point action plan . Among the highlights :
Taking advantage of the authenticity trend and with a great emphasis on smarter , targeted marketing ; a new “ independently minded ” tagline ; a brand “ device ” that will be featured more prominently on the website ; and newly launched apps to reflect a 49 % increase in visits to SLH ’ s mobile site and a 71 % increase in reservations via mobile . It will also appear on SLH collateral , notably the SLH Directory , which is being reintroduced in 2016 .
While a new Internet booking engine with Trust International is being rolled out , a loyalty club , “ Very Independent People ,” will launch in March and reward guests simply by engaging . The club currently has 20,000 members , and Boyen wants to reach 50,000 active , engaged members .
On the development front , Boyen wants to grow its hotel presence in key cities and create more representation in Asia , Africa , Middle East and Latin America ( think Brazil ).
The group is also increasing its sales and marketing presence in Central and South America , India , New Zealand , Japan and Russia , as well as investing in the corporate team to support small group business . Jeff Weinstein , editor in chief
14 HOTELS January / February 2016 www . hotelsmag . com