The Green House Hotel; our motivation in signing up to the Digital Destination programme was to look at the time we were spending on social media and see if it was viable.  At the starting point our facebook page worked great and we could measure through insights but our twitter and other online presence was underutilised but, we acknowledged that they could be valuable tools for us. The programme has allowed us the opportunity to discuss with our peers in a focussed manner the options available and review which channels will be the most manageable and cost effective for our business.  As well as learning all these different ways of measuring our output so we are no longer stabbing in the dark!  Thank you to all the team at the DDP for your patience and encouragement over the last months.

1. DIGITAL DESTINATIONS
Dr Philip Alford
Bournemouth University
www.digitalhub.co.uk
www.pinterest.com/digitaldest
www.slideshare.net/DigitalHub
ddp@bournemouth.ac.uk
@schooloftourism | @philipalford
#DDBU

2. Digital Destinations project is an ESRC funded research project,
delivered by Bournemouth University,
with an overarching aim to:
‘capture change in the adoption and use of digital technologies
and to develop a strong, competitive local tourism economy.
Through increased understanding and use of emerging digital
technologies, visitor economy businesses will be in a position to
increase their marketing and management effectiveness, and
develop new products and services that will provide an
enhanced experience for visitors to their destinations’

3. The businesses benefited from 4 workshops which covered:
 Background to on line marketing
 Individual Business objectives
 Developing the strategy
 Measuring impact
 Reporting outcomes via case studies
All course material can be found at http://www.slideshare.net/DigitalHub
All business outcomes and blogs can be found at http://www.budigitalhub.co.uk/

4. The following presentation is the case study provided by The Green House
Hotel
The Green House Hotel; our motivation in signing up to the Digital
Destination programme was to look at the time we were spending on social
media and see if it was viable. At the starting point our facebook page
worked great and we could measure through insights but our twitter and
other online presence was underutilised but, we acknowledged that they
could be valuable tools for us. The programme has allowed us the
opportunity to discuss with our peers in a focussed manner the options
available and review which channels will be the most manageable and cost
effective for our business. As well as learning all these different ways of
measuring our output so we are no longer stabbing in the dark! Thank you
to all the team at the DDP for your patience and encouragement over the
last months.

5. The Green House’s
Digital destination Journey 2013
The Green House Bournemouth
www.thegreenhousehotel.com
www.facebook.com/greenhousehotel
www.twitter.com/greenhousehotel

6. Where were we November 2012
Strengths
• High engagement on Facebook (Section 2.5.1)
• E-Newsletters create loyalty with customers (Section
2.5.3).
• USP of being eco friendly hotel with strong brand
image.
• Existing customer base which are loyal once visiting the
hotel.
Opportunities
• Develop relationships with suppliers and companies
over social media
• Using Digital Media to upsell hotels services.
• Take advantage of the facilities that the hotel provides to
the guests which can be targeted to new segments, e.g
people with electric cars (Section 2.2)
• Hotel deals through social media to loyal customers
leading to retention.
• Extending into new markets can help bring in more
profit for the company.
• Develop the products on offer- business meetings and
corporate market can increase profit.
• Link all media channels, keeping the brand strong and
cohesive to extend the customer journey with the brand
and to reduce time spent in updating each medium
separately.
Weaknesses
• Twitter underutilised for the market
• Not sure how long to spend on each medium, or how much
money to spend on updating, therefore some e-marketing
channels are not used.
• Lack of knowledge on different marketing channels.
• Conflicting markets- not sure who is being targeted on certain
social media channels.
Threats
• Boutique hotels in Bournemouth that have their own USP’s
that attract couples to their hotel from their unique twists.
• New Entrants in the Dorset Area.
• Focus on USP of eco-friendly hotel will help to separate The
Green House hotel from the competition. (Section 2.4).
• Focus on engaging in customer conversation to increase
lifetime value and to keep customers loyal to product and not
move to competitors in the area.
• Understand and establish existing channels before moving
onto new, upcoming social media to gain competitive
advantage.

7. Google Analytics confirmed our
Facebook activity was working well

8. Our Objectives were set...
The objectives that the Green House Hotel wish to
achieve and measure are the following:
1. To measure the conversion on Twitter to The Green
House Hotel Website.
2. To measure the engagement on Twitter and to raise
the profile of the Green House Hotel through twitter
posts to followers.

9. What have we done..
1. We have set up our head chef with his own twitter
account
2. The Green House’s new restaurant Arbor and the
boutique hotel The Green House interact with Andy’s
(Chef) twitter account to create a buzz via twitter
3. We post tweets and include bloggers
4. We read tweets of travel/wedding companies that
have lots of followers that may be interested in hotel
stays and reply to them to try to increase RT
5. We engage more about the here and now rather than
the future

10. Results?

11. More results!!

12. What are we proud of?
On May 16th We tweeted Visit England and they responded to their 47,234 followers the
following

13. The Team who made it possible
#appsfab
Without my team mates to help me with new ideas and keep me on track

14. The Future...
• A blog is on the way – just need to think of
something to talk about.
• Pinterest and foursquare accounts have been
attained
• A redesign of our website with a seperate website
for our restaurant which is fully responsive
• Getting the team involved by posting their own
interest posts on facebook and Chef is trained and
hooked on twitter!

15. To finish
A big thank you to everyone at the Bournemouth
University for making this period so enjoyable and
educational. For always having an interesting story and
for helping lift the veil of confusion.
Social media is a lot clearer now and the tools to track
what you are doing are fantastic. We can now measure
our input!
A suggestion for the future? Get the team back together
in 6 months time to see the tangible results which will
hopefully ensure we are always learning and growing.

16. For more information on DIGITAL DESTINATIONS contact:
Dr Philip Alford, Bournemouth University
ddp@bournemouth.ac.uk
@schooloftourism | @philipalford
#DDBU