Image: Hotels are not yet using social media to their full potential

Hotels are putting social media on hold as a marketing and selling mechanism and are more likely to partner up with online travel agents in an effort to drive direct bookings.

A six-month qualitative study by Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne and RateTiger found that while social networks including Facebook, Twitter, TripAdvisor and YouTube are recognised as new forms of digital marketing, hotels are still unconvinced about the impact these channels will actually have on bookings and are therefore deterred from implementing strategies in the short term.

The report, called The Distribution Challenge 2012, also shows that one in three of the hotels surveyed have no social digital media strategy, and only one in eight use any form of social media as a marketing tool.

Hotels have instead focused on the development of offline strategies to build more corporate contracts that deliver more predictable business, and to diversify their online distribution mix to generate additional revenue opportunities.

Horatiu Tudori, senior lecturer at Ecole hoteliere de Lausanne, said: "We have found that hotels work with more travel agents and consortia contracts for the corporate segment, apply BAR to walk-ins, and develop special offers for returning customers, including the introduction of loyalty programmes.

"This is an interesting turn-around from the unbalanced and heavily online-focused sales strategies of the past few years, which are not bringing the yields independent hotels so much need right now. We also found that hotels just don?t see the true revenue value in social networks, opting for more traditional methods to engage customers."

To download the full The Distribution Challenge 2012 report, click here.

Ecole Hotelier de Lausanne is one of the oldest hotel schools in the world.