The Instagrammable Hotel

With over one billion active users, Instagram belongs to the upper echelons of social media platforms. Hotels all over the world are “increasingly using these tools, integrating them into their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategies to engage customers in active conversations” (Garrido-Moreno, García-Morales, Lockett, & King, 2018, p.94). Yet the truly digital-savvy hotels, have understood that the possibilities of these tools are not merely useful for engaging guests (many from Generation Z) on a digital platform, but can be used to design their spaces, experiences, as well as allowing a co-creative model of visual storytelling to thrive. By looking through the lens of Instagram, these hotels can assess “their level of innovation and inspiration from the consumer perspective” (Anderson, 2017, p.1). Successful shows such as Netflix’s “Motel Makeover” featuring The June Motel is an excellent example of the owners understanding the inherent value of designing spaces and experiences through such a lens. Yet while the two owners of the June Motel (who had no prior hospitality experience to launching their motel) had an instinctive understanding of the instagrammmable hotel, research is needed on better understanding this phenomenon, both from an academic and practitioner perspective.

This project will focus on investigating our understanding of the instagrammmable hotel from multiple perspectives, namely (i) a guest-and-consumer perspective, (ii) from a hotel management perspective and (iii) from a social media expertise perspective. The project will help create a definition for the instagrammmable hotel in terms of spaces, experiences, and visual storytelling.

References

Anderson, C. (2017, September). In the millennial, social-media-centric age, Instagrammable hotels stand out. Hotelmanagement.Net, 1–3. Retrieved from https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/handle/10919/79885

Garrido-Moreno, A., García-Morales, V. J., Lockett, N., & King, S. (2018). The missing link: Creating value with Social Media use in hotels. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 75, 94–104. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2018.03.008

• Research on SoME in Hospitality is limited and is focused on ROI metrics and marketing – not also it how it can be used to design spaces, experiences, and co-creation.
• New generations of travellers are arriving (Generation Z) who have very different demands and patterns than predecessors – project will reveal information on their accommodation needs (from an instagrammable perspective)
• Comparative studies will allow us to assess how well equipped the hotel industry to be instagrammable

• Relevance for EASV: Digitization and Innovation are important pillars with our knowledge strategy, and also UN Development Goals.
• The knowledge gained will be of value to (especially) the business programs, where business innovation, working with SoME tools and customer experience are important parameters for success. The added dimension of hospitality is of particular relevance to the SØK program.

The knowledge gained will be of value to the hospitality industry, who will get a better assessment of where they stand in terms of being instagrammable (and catering to the new generation of travellers), and what are the demands of said new generation of travellers. Moreover, they will learn how to use SoME more than just a marketing tool, but as an innovation and co-creative development tool for delivering experiences.

1. Project Planning: Spring semester 2022
2. Data collection phase I (quantitative phase): Spring semester/Fall semester 2022
3. Creation of website and podcast ‘room’: Fall semester 2022
4. Data collection phase II (qualitative phase): Fall semester 2022/ Spring semester 2023
5. Article writing and podcast creation: Fall semester 2023/Spring semester 2024

Dissemination activities: Spring semester 2024/Fall semester 2024

Data will be collected done in two rounds, thus blending both qualitative and quantitative methods.

• Quantitative Content Analysis of 25 Danish hotels’ instagram account
• Semi-structured interviews with SoMe experts (particular Instagram) and hotel professionals (at management and marketing level)