As baby boomers retire in increasing numbers, hotels that rely heavily on business travelers must adapt to a new generation of executives. An in-room coffee machine and free morning newspaper aren’t going to cut it for millennials, who demand a tech-savvy, highly personalized travel experience from booking to checkout. So how does a tradition-rich lodging brand stay relevant in a changing marketplace?
For Marriott Hotels, the signature brand of lodging giant Marriott International, the answer was simple: If you want to know what next-generation travelers want, just ask them.
Crowdsourcing clients’ ideas and opinions is key to Marriott Hotels’ cross-channel marketing strategy, which centers on the award-winning Travel Brilliantly campaign. Launched in 2013, the campaign turned heads by encouraging guest collaboration across a variety of platforms to help shape the direction of the brand’s 500 hotels worldwide.
Via TravelBrilliantly.com, guests were invited to “co-create” with Marriott by sharing their ideas for how to improve all aspects of the travel experience—from food and drink to health and wellness. A contest on the site features the best submissions, allowing other users to vote for their favorites and comment via Facebook.
“People really understand what we’re looking for, and they understand that we’re trying to have a conversation bigger than just their recent hotel stay,” the company’s past director of digital marketing, Katie Krum, told Skift. “We’re lifting the hood, or pulling back the curtain to show you where we’re headed.”
The brand has taken its grassroots approach to innovation from concept to reality. In September 2013, a 21-year-old college student suggested that hotels provide vending machines stocking healthy snacks and meals—enabling travelers to access good-for-you food whenever their schedule allows. The idea generated nearly 2,000 ‘That’s Brilliant’ votes from fellow users, and within a year had been put into practice at the Chicago Marriott O’Hare. Local startup Farmer’s Fridge installed a kiosk in the hotel’s lobby, stocked daily with tasty selections like organic kale, quinoa salad and Greek yogurt with local honey.
“I think it hits on something the next-gen traveler is very focused on, this idea of healthy or local food whenever they want it,” Krum says. Other crowdsourced solutions include pop-up shops at Marriotts in Atlanta and Boston that enable guests to buy authentic, local gifts without leaving the lobby, and a bourbon-imbued bartender-in-residence program at Griffin Gate Marriott in Lexington, Kentucky.
Marriott promotes these and other innovations across a variety of digital channels, bolstering its youthful image through video and social media. Some Marriott properties even loan guests the latest GoPro HERO4 camera to capture and share their adventures using #TravelBrilliantly on Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and with more than 2 million Facebook followers.
Just as Marriott’s real-world innovations target the specific desires of Gen Y travelers, the brand also targets its digital marketing on a similarly personal level. In this video, Marriott’s former senior manager of digital channel research, Kenyon Rogers, describes how Adobe Target allows the company to tailor its marketing message—giving the right information to the right guest, at the right time. The result? A boost in bookings, and a more than 50 percent jump in rewards program enrollment.
“Digital is not a phase,” Rogers says. “Digital is something that has to be a part of the Marriott culture going forward. It has to be a part of the Marriott DNA.”
And as the lodging landscape evolves, a strong cross-channel marketing strategy enables Marriott and other forward-thinking brands to understand the demands of a changing demographic—by breaking down the hotel walls and inviting guests to be a part of the discussion.
