Great Hotels of the World Introduces a Co-Funded Digital Marketing Fund for Its Members

London, United Kingdom, March 03, 2012 --(PR.com)-- Great Hotels of the World (http://www.ghotw.com), the global hotel sales and marketing alliance, is to launch Great Hotels Digital Plus, a tailor-made digital marketing fund and associated service for its member properties. Great Hotels Digital Plus will act as part of the alliance’s strategy to innovate and strengthen its leisure and corporate programmes.

Great Hotels Digital Plus is a move away from the traditional soft-brand model, where historically a hotel’s fees are pooled and spent predominantly on marketing at brand level. The initiative is designed to assist member hotels in strategic digital marketing, allowing each property to individually experiment, evolve and refine their efforts online.

Great Hotels of the World has identified that many of its members do not have the resources, knowledge or market intelligence to fully benefit from the opportunities that digital marketing offers. Great Hotels Digital Plus will provide member properties with a platform from which to engage in individually designed online marketing activities. This will be funded in three ways: from a reallocation of marketing funds to an individual property level, from hotels contributing their own budgets to the programme, and from co-funding from Great Hotels of the World. It is envisaged that this strategy will enable Great Hotels of the World’s member properties to have greater control over how they are marketed, resulting in a greater return from the relationship with the brand.

Peter Gould, CEO of Great Hotels of the World, says: “In recent years, there has been a significant shift within the marketplace from traditional channels to digital. Old media placed substantial value on demographic profiling based on a person’s wealth, income and age. New media demands a new form of demographic profiling based on what people search for and who they follow online. This means that our approach to marketing our members in this space needs to shift to a micro-strategy for each property. Great Hotels Digital Plus will enable us to deliver this to our members.”

Gould further adds, “Based on the alliance’s greater media-buying power, market intelligence and sector expertise, this initiative will serve as a platform to allow our members to leverage greater returns from their marketing in the digital space.”

Great Hotels of the World will be exhibiting at ITB in Berlin. Visit them in Hall 9, stand 111.

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