Social Media and eCRM as a Prerequisite for Hotel Success

Development of information and communication technology (ICT) has enabled the development of electronic customer relations (eCRM) as a business strategy that uses web technologies for developing the capacity and enabling hotels to engage guests in the strong, personalized and mutually beneficial interactive relationship, and thus increase their profitability and sales efficiency. Internet development has enabled the rapid growth of hotel industry. Today, hotel managers are completely aware of benefits that Internet as a promotion tool offers to their business, and accordingly, they are motivated to create greater awareness of their hotels with the goal of increasing number of guests and improving hotel reputation. This article describes how eCRM strategy is used by hotel managers to promote the hotel, more specifically, how much impact websites, social media and e-mail marketing campaigns have on hotelpromotion and business performance.