The Greek hospitality industry on the rocky digital path

Sofia Gkiousou | Monday, March 15th, 2010 | 2 Comments »

Golden Bay Hotel Uploaded by Golden Bay on 22 Dec 09, 10.01AM GMT.

I was thinking of blogging about our Labour Local Election candidates today but two things diverted me. First, it’s a glorious and sunny day in London which shouts out ‘summer’ to me. Second, I saw a Google Ad for a Greek hotel that made me shudder a bit.

We work with hotels and we tend to do so in the long term rather than run campaigns. We are not a PR agency after all, nor do we do marketing. With some of our clients we tend to advise from conception, to systems architecture, all the way to communications with agents, online booking systems and campaigns.

The Greek hospitality market is a somewhat peculiar one. You get a wide mix of hospitality establishments and they don’t always run along the same lines. As in every market some things are great and some things are simply abysmal – the later not always the fault of one industry (remind me to blog about well-rounded tourism policies at some point).

In my experience the hoteliers that are interested in digital communications are generally the ones who are keener to start learning and changing things. They are generally the ones who invest, who improve, who love what they do. For these people to actually do something brilliant, good or even simply respectable it is imperative that the market offers knowledgeable and enthusiastic companies/ people as well.

In other words; it’s all very well if a hotelier wants to do a website and start getting into digital communications. But he needs trusted people to guide him/ her. You see, good business people recognise that they are not specialists at everything and they look out for specialists to help them.

This is a positive process even though it can be quite arduous and full of pitfalls but no matter. You test, you learn, you move on.

Only it’s not that simple. Alongside the ones who really try, who really test, who really have a strategy and a vision you also get the phenomenon of quick and dirty projects. And I’m not talking about hoteliers. I am talking about communications consultants.

Examples abound. Social media strategies that comprise of a hotelname.blogspot.com and a twitter account. No training. No design. No targets. A website designed and uploaded only to claim under the National Strategic Reference Framework (the EU structural funds). Especially with the later – it’s called ESPA in Greece, you’ll hear about it a lot if you are getting involved in this market – I think it’s doing more harm than good. Giving the money without any real incentives or accountability always worries me. It feels like this should be a good opportunity for meaningful investment squandered in “do a website get state finding” type of approach.

Naturally both sides are somewhat at fault. We once had to decline working with one hotel because they wanted first place on Google search yesterday with their receptionist running their SEO and the online booking system to require a call from the customer (actual call) to confirm the booking. Right. Even after explaining things, even after example after example their mind was set so we had to decline. However, I don’t doubt that someone else took on the project, followed instructions to the letter and together they produced something that basically hurt the business.

And this is exactly the problem. Quick and dirty projects hurt the business and in the long run they also hurt the market. Hoteliers need to be braver and look at things more in the long terms. Communications consultants need to be prepared to educate and really work at a well rounded strategy rather than a one – off little thing.

Wouldn’t that be better?