Samir El ayachi
2ND PART EXAM: Conversation with customers

1) A social sharing website is a site (or a blog) where people called users which have subscribed to the website (for free or not), can debate, give their opinion, their experiences about topics by positing articles and comments. Topics depend on the website theme, it could be cinema, music, technologies, goods, services etc...... So they share something and they socialize because they talk to others users. Photo albums websites are aslo social sharing website like Ringo.com or Photobucket.com.
About hotel industry, i think about http://www.tripadvisor.com/ where we find commentaries and pics about hotels posted by customers. There is also http://www.hotel-blogs.com/
Another example of social sharing site, http://www.sharepedia.com/, a site in Spanish an Portuguese for sharing MS Tech info

2) This kind of site can influence consumers'choice. As we mentionned in the 1st question, users can give their opinions about a good or a service after testing it or not, it could be a good or bad commentary and according to that the other users (consumers) can make for themselves an idea concerning this good or service for testing it or not. For example, in http://www.tripadvisor.com/ there are bad or good commentaries about hotel, that can influence consumers of course.

3) Hoteliers can best utilize social sharind trends to communicate with customers by creating blogs. for example, see the blog of Bill Marriott from Marriott Hotels Group, http://www.blogs.marriott.com/ This idea of speaking directly online with customers is very original.

4) Can hotels effectively establish an online conversation with customers?
So personally, i think more about answering "no" than "yes". Because that requires:

- More TIME (to answer,analize the quantity of customers questions, suggestions) that the person in charge of it (communication department) could not have it.
- A strict organization
So this is a supplementary task which would entail more difficulty.

Friday April 20th 1st part EXAM
Annaïk SIMON + Samir El Ayachi CMH4A

We Choose Kube Hotel and our 3 reseller parties are: www.avantgardehotels.com, www.hoteladvisor.com, www.flashbooking.com

www.avantgardehotels.com
Target: design hotels, boutique hotels, hip hotels, luxury hotels, small hotels...
Reach: all the world (Asia, Europe, South and north America...)
Image: beautiful hotels, design hotels, modern hotels, original hotels, "the coolest and most exciting designs, combining colors and shapes that appeal to customers with style and originality...
Distribution: there is a reservation link on the site where you can directly choose your country (through a map or by choosing in a list), dates, number of nights...
For the marketing, there are brochures to download, moreover, the web site is translated in 5 languages, there is also a link to other web sites.

www.hoteladvisor.com
Target: city hotels, 2*, 3*, and 4* hotels, business hotels,companies which rent cars, airlines companies.
Reach: big cities all over the world.
Image: city hotels near transport infrastrucutres (train station, airport, ...), near big companies, taht is to say practical hotel for business clientele.
Distribution: there is also on line a link for reservation of rooms, airline tickets and car rental.
There is an affiliate program with the website.
Marketingly speaking, there is a link to other web site list by countries.

www.flashbooking.com
Target: Cheap hotels and hostels located in cities.
Reach: Hotels and hostels all over the world.
Image: Cheap hotels and hostels for young traverllers with low budget.
Distribution: Reservation online, there is a link to special partners and "link to us".
About the marketing there are PDF guides which are available for people who are going on the site, there are about 10 different languages, and the is a link "tell a friends" where you can send the web site link to a friend (which is a kind of viral marketing)!!!

Conclusion:
The reseller site which is the best for Kube hotel, is www.avantgardehotels.com because it is more in adequation with the image of our hotel. In fact, kube hotel is a design hotel which has a particular style.
This web site would make good advertising for us because on this reseller site there are very famous hotels which can promote our image.
www.avantgardehotels.com contains concept hotels and there is no denying that Kube hotel is a real concept!
This reseller site is the best way to make us known from regular customers of such hotels.