Hotels’ popularity rise or fall based on the public’s perception. Sure there are factors that weigh in such as their online reviews, negative or positive PR, and beyond. But there are various forces that help shape that perception, beyond the actual experience of staying somewhere for the first time. These forces could come from either a macro or micro influencers.
If you’re considering going either route, here is a rundown of both so you can make a determination for your property.
What are macro influencers?
Macro influencers are celebrities or personalities that have anywhere from 10,000 followers to numbers in the millions. They generally garner a large amount of engagement per post and usually have immediate reach with their communities.
What do macro influencers do?
As an endorser for a chain of hotels, macro influencers give a personalized stamp of approval of that brand. In the hotel business, a celebrity’s recommendation is the equivalent of one respected brand endorsing another. Since macro influencers tend to get higher than normal engagement rates and have large followings, the results for your hotel would be that you’d get instant exposure for your brand.
What can hotel marketers expect from macro influencers?
Hotel marketers can assume some level of engagement with their brand when working with the influencer. The assumption with macro influencers is that the public will pay attention to what a well-known person says, even if their connection to hotels is tangential.
When Rosewood Hotels & Resorts hired actor Jessica Alba as a “brand curator” earlier this year. Not because potential guests would see her as an expert in the guest experience. But more to raise public awareness by connecting with a well-known name and face. One other outcome of using a macro influencer is cashing in on a celebrity’s likeability to give the hotel’s image a boost.
Another assumption is that potential guests will see a celebrity’s experience at a hotel as a predictor of what they can expect.
The luxury hotel Mandarin Oriental, for example, recruited international celebrities to back the brand. Some of these celebrities included ballerina Darcey Bussell, fashion designer Kenzo Takada, and actors Morgan Freeman, Lucy Liu, Kevin Spacey, and Helen Mirren.
