The growth of global tourism is the top trend in hospitality, reported Ben Stone, director of the Sonoma County Economic Development Bureau.
The economist noted his findings, March 25 at the ninth annual Napa Valley College Wine Country Hospitality Symposium.
Wine country hospitality professionals attended the event to learn about current hospitality trends, challenges and opportunities plus local and global concerns.
With local visitors spending an average of $1,000 per person, the economic impact of hospitality is considerable, Stone said.
?The increase in global travel creates the need for international knowledge,? Stone said, ?and the hospitality industry must be culturally adept and cater to varied tastes and interests.?
?Tourism from China is huge,? reported speaker Albert Yu, hospitality management coordinator at Santa Rosa Junior College. Yu said businesses can capitalize on the rapidly growing Chinese economy and its parallel interest in U.S. experiences and products.
Is your business ?China-ready?? he asked. Some suggestions Yu gave on how to meet the challenge: include website content in Chinese, add a staff member who speaks Mandarin and be visible in Chinese social media and review sites online, Yu said.
Social media continues to grow both domestically and globally. Melodie Hilton, director of marketing/PR for the Napa River Inn, said the predominant trends focus on content marketing and measuring the ?ROR? ? return on relationship ? to determine the success of social media investment. But beware, she said.
?Building awareness is not enough. Counting your ?likes? is not enough,? she said. Followers may not be business prospects or even reliable business indicators.
ROR also means measuring and tracking customers both online and off to learn what they spend. Randy Martinsen of Grgich Hills Estate Winery discussed the right tools to collect and manage customer information. According to Martinsen, a good customer relationship management system is essential at all stages of interaction: interrupting, engaging, educating, offering and tracking success of customer emails and other communications or campaigns.
The rise of social media brings a need for risk and crisis management planning, said Andrew Healy, chief social officer of 3 Rock Marketing. Once a post or image has been shared, the owner loses control of it, and even simple postings by an employee, on their own time, can be connected with the company they work for. The effects of a major blunder can destroy years of relationship and branding work.
Businesses need a strategic approach, said Healy. They need a document that tracks who has access to all social media and a master login and password. They need a social media manual for employees, providing employee training and establishing clear guidelines about what is acceptable online posting.
?You can?t tell employees what to do on their own time/on their own sites, but you can tell them what you expect,? Healy said.
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Source: Growth of global tourism noted at symposium, Napa Valley Register http://napavalleyregister.com/business/d0d15890-b9f8-11e3-9d48-0019bb2963f4.html published Apr 01, 2014. Viewed Apr 03, 2014.