01_Project_Hotel_Schiff

Group Nr. 6 //(307318) Daniel D'mello// //(307372) Macro Hau Yick Him// //(307519) Bernard Li Pak Him// //(308071) Lee Chong Hwai// //(307039) Kavanjit Hayre// //(307181) Pham Huy Dung Joe// //(307328) Nguyen Dang Minh Phuong Chelsea//

[] Contact person Mr Fietze Tel. (+41) 41 418 52 52 - contact@hotel-schiff-luzern.ch

This report is going to research on the current marketing approach including the E-marketing of the Swiss hotel restaurant Schiff located in Luzern. The authors need to identify the local and national competitors and provide the recommendations on web marketing.
 * Introduction**


 * Content**
 * 1) Action plan
 * 2) Responsibility
 * 3) Research on current official website
 * 4) Interview
 * 5) Research on current marketing approach
 * 6) Comparison
 * 7) E-marketing strategy suggestions
 * actual action
 * explanation of the process

__**1. Action plan **__
 * 1) **Research on the hotel's website** (30th March) review the current website, SEO (google, yahoo)
 * 2) **Interview** (15th April) the interview is supposed to be done on 15th April but it was delayed because it was impossible to contact Mr. Fitze. the interview is expected to be done as soon as the group contact Mr. Fitze.
 * 3) **Research on competitors** (20th April): who are the competitors, what are their marketing approach, how do they advertise their hotels by using web 2.0
 * 4) **Create support material** (18th to 29th April): create video, suggest marketing ideas, create an account on the social website (myspace, flicker), upgrade the current existing page on facebook.

__**18th of April**__
__**2. Responsibility**__ Joe, Marco, CH and Bernard: go to interview the manager Marco: suggestion for the marketing approach CH: research on the marketing approach. Chelsea: research on current webpage Daniel, Kavanjit: analyze the competitors Bernard, Joe: executive summary __**22nd of April**__

__**3. Current web presence**__

website: http://www.hotel-schiff-luzern.ch/

The website design is very simple. At the front page, there are the reservation system and other basic information for the hotel: rooms, location & arrival and their two restaurant.

Restaurants: information is not enough to deliver to the international guests. there is no menu available on the webpage.

reservation system: is lack of information and not attractive enough. there are no information about the types of the room which could be used as support.

social media: with the feedback below:
 * there is one fan page on Facebook [|http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Hotel-Schiff/164284360253968]
 * feedback of the guests on tripadvisor [|http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g188064-d265012-Reviews-Schiff_Hotel-Lucerne.html]
 * information of the hotel on Swissguide []
 * information and the reservation system on myswitzerland []
 * there are no information on the other social media (animoto, twitter, flicker, myspace, youtube).

SEO: there is five results related to the website of hotel Schiff if typing "hotel Schiff Luzern" on Google

there is no result f typing "hotel Luzern" on Google.

Metatag of the current website of the hotel: code < meta name = "keywords" content = "Hotel Schiff Lucerne" /  >

code

__**25th of April**__

__**4. Interview:**__ During the interview, the following questions were asked to Mr. Fitze and this was the information he provided us with.

Q 1. Could you please give us a brief introduction to the Hotel Schiff. - The block of land where Hotel Schiff is located has been in existance since 1790 - The government of Lucerne approved of providing meals and accomodation for the poorer people - After a big fire which destroyed the entire block, Hotel Schiff would be reconstructed in 1833/1834 - In 1835, the name „Schiff“ was officially approved by the council of the town - In 1949, Mr. and Mrs. Helmlin took over management of the hotel and became the new owners - The „bistro“ restaurant was first opened in 1972 - Mr. and Mrs. Wiesner took over management of the Hotel-Restaurant Schiff

Q2. Can you please give us information on the hotel’s specialities? - Hotel Schiff has 16 rooms with a maximum capacity of 40 clients - The rooms are categorised as Standard and Superior, and prices include room per night, breakfast buffet as well as service and taxes - Traditional Swiss food is served in the restaurant, local plates like „Lozärner Chögelipastete“ - The restaurant offers up to 80 places for à la carte and up to 90 for groups - Newspaper articles about the hotel history as well as famous traditional cooking recipies are all included in the hotel brochure which can be picked up in the lobby

Q3. Could you elaborate about your target market, based on country, type of guest and low/high seasons? - The main focus is Swiss clientele as guests are usually elderly Swiss looking to take a short holiday - During high season, the hotel has been known to accomodate foreign customers as well, ranging from online bookings, to walk-ins and phone reservations

Q4. Who are the competitors for hotel Schiff? - Local Swiss hotels are the main competitors but they complement each other simultaneously; Pfistern and Rothaus are four-star Swiss hotels located close to the city centre

Q5. Please can you provide more information about the room types in the hotel? - The hotel rooms take up the better part of two buildings - The size differs between 15-30 m2 depending on the type of room - Standard rooms are facing the back, and the town; Superior rooms are facing the lake of Lucerne and the mountains in the background - Standard rooms can be divided into single or double, as can the Superior rooms; however we have even converted rooms into triple bed upon customer request

Q6. Can you talk about the current marketing approach employed by Hotel Schiff? - As the main focus is Swiss clients, there is not much marketing carried out, most of it is by word-of-mouth spread by local patrons that have previously visited - There is currently renovations being done to increase the capacity in the restaurants, the upscale restaurant is being fitted to accomodate 120 guests from the original 80, whereas the garden restaurant will feature 150+ seats for guests - For VIPs, there is a Gallery Room which houses pictures and historical information from the founding days of the hotel, until recent times

Below is a picture taken to prove our interview is taken.

After the interview, the group realized that they do not have any strategy for marketing (and therefore e-marketing). they are heavily depended on the reputation of the hotel.

media type="youtube" key="5S6RCZA4IFg" height="390" width="480"

__**5. Current marketing approach**__ First of all, our group has done some researches upon Hotel Restaurant Schiff before the interview. We found out that this hotel has a basic homepage, there is not much job be done in the e-marketing area. They also didn't make use of much metatag to promote their hotel throughout the website. The Hotel Restaurant Schiff has already known since 1790, they have confidential reputation and continuous customers. Different Hospitality business has been taken part in this building. Basically they have a solid reputation that marketing are not nessecary. Swiss peoples will have known Hotel Restaurant Schiff is mainly well known with their traditional Swiss food and special local plates. One of the benefits with that, is that E-marketing today are costly and competible. With the help of it history, marketing expenses has been taken down. Mr. Ritze has said that the main guests of the hotel is old Swiss people and a minority of international tourists. therefore, there are no need for advertise the hotel through internet. hotel restaurant Schiff does not have any e-marketing.
 * Marketing approach
 * Web marketing approach


 * Advantages of IT**

Globalization in IT has not only bought the world together but it has also allowed the economy of the world to become a single interdependent system. This means that information can be shared quickly and efficiently and it also helps bring down linguistic and geographical boundaries.

Communication in IT has not only helped us send Text messages and E-mails for instantaneous response but it has also made it cheaper, quicker and more efficient. The Internet has opened up options for face-to-face contact with other people.

Cost Effectiveness in IT has helped to computerize the businesses process this streamlining businesses to make them extremely cost effective money making machines. This in turn increases productivity, which ultimately gives rise to profits that, means better pay and less strenuous working conditions.

media type="youtube" key="PocpFTZmHg4" height="390" width="640"

__**6. COMPARISON**__


 * local competitor**

The main Competitor for Hotel Schiff is Hotel Flora [], which is around 50 meters away from Hotel Schiff. Hotel Flora is situated in New Town, Lucerne and is only 300 meters from Lucerne, Bahnhof. Hotel Schiff is a three star hotel, whereas Hotel Flora is a four star hotel. Hotel Flora is more of a Business hotel, which has 161-guest rooms available whereas Hotel Schiff only has 16-guest room.

Hotel Schiff concentrates more on its two restaurants which provide Swiss and International food. Hotel Flora has a much more modern website compared to Hotel Schiff. Hotel Flora’s website is easier to operate whereas Hotel Schiff is also easy but is very old and does not use any type of media means to attract their market. Both Hotel Schiff and Hotel Flora have both English and German on their website for customer comfort.


 * National competitors**

there are 3 hotels named Schiff located in Switzerland but in different cantons (Zurich, Vitznau and Unterägeri**).** All of them do not use social media to advertise their website however, their current web page is much more creative and attractive than the website of hotel restaurant Schiff Luzern.

Schiff Hotel Restaurant Bar []
 * address: Unterdorfstrasse 21 CH-8808 Pfäffikon SZ, telefon +41 (0)55 416 17 18 Telefax +41 (0)55 416 17 19, Email: info@schiff-pfaeffikon.ch

Hotel restaurant Schiff Vitznau []
 * Address: CH-6354 Vitznau Switzerland Tel. ++41 41 397 13 57 Fax. ++41 41 397 24 98, Email: info@schiff-vitznau.ch

Hotel restaurant Schiff Zug []
 * address: Seestr. 27 CH- 6314 Unterägeri ZG, Telefon: 041 750 35 40 - international +4141 750 35 40, Fax: 041 750 41 81 - international + 4141 750 41 81, E-mail**:** schiff-unteraegeri@bluewin.ch

__ 1. Social media: __ Both Schiff hotel in Zurich and Vitznau do not promote their hotel by using social media,
 * LOCATION || Social media || Languages of the website || Online booking || Room information || Restaurant information ||
 * Zurich || N/A || G, F, I, E || N/A || Available || Good ||
 * Vitznau || N/A || E, G || N/A || Available || Fair ||
 * Zug || Available || G || N/A || Available || Good ||
 * Luzern || Available || G, E || Available || Available || Fair ||

Hotel Schiff in Luzern and Zug has a page on facebook.

Luzern: []

Zug: [|http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Hotel-Schiff/118711528187146]

__ 2. Languages: __ G: German F: French I: Italian E: English

3. __Online booking__ is not available except hotel Schiff Luzern, they have reservation system with different ten languages.

4. __Room information__ is available for all the hotels but hotel Schiff does not provide what type of room they have.

5. __Restaurant information:__ · Luzern: brief information, it is no information of the menu as well as the picture demonstrates restaurant is not attractive. · Vitznau: lack of information for the entire restaurants. · Zurich: provide lots of information of all their restaurants (menu, service) · Zug: provide enough information however, the quality of the pictures are not high.

=> the website of hotel restaurant Schiff Luzern is provided more information than the other website, the website of hotel located in Zurich is quite complicated for using. However, all the hotels have not done any e-marketing approaches.

__**26th of April**__

__**7. E-Marketing Strategies Suggestions:**__

Mr. Fitze has mentioned in the interview that the main target of the hotel is Swiss, the group suggest that the website should be able to view in Italian and French since Switzerland is a multicultural country with the majority speak 3 main languages: German, French and Italian.
 * Languages**

Since Hotel Schiff does not want to do e-marketing in these days because of an established reputation of the hotel, they do not need to invest much in marketing. According to the hotel manager – Herr Fitze, explained Hotel Schiff is actually doing “ Word of Mouth “ marketing. The hotel has been built since 1790 and it has become the most historical hotel site in Luzern town therefore the hotel would not agree to contribute much in E- Marketing area. Actually Hotel Schiff has done a minor investment on e-marketing but they are not really highly concerned on the internet. For example, on Search Engine Management (SEM), they did negotiate with Google to get their name on google.com, when we tried to type down “ Hotel Schiff Luzern “ , the hotel has shown up in the first place : []
 * Metatag**



However it is certainly not enough, when we checked the source code on their official web page: [], they have only create one metatag : ** . **

the top 8 most popular keyword for searching a hotel

(source:[|http://www.wordstream.com/popular-keywords/hotel-keywords] )

It means their hotel only appear on google when people actually type down their full name. We suggest the owner/ manager should buy more words on Search Engine, for example ‘ 3 star hotel Luzern “ or “Luzern hotel “, it actually fits the customer target from Hotel Schiff and provide easier access for potential customers.
 *  **

__Facebook__ Nowadays social network has been taken a vital part of the society, platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and etc have million account over the world, billion connections have been built on the internet, people like to exchange information, sharing experience and searching on net, therefore e-marketing is absolutely important in 21st century. To improve their potential profit and expand customer target, we suggest Hotel Schiff first to recreate their own hotel page on Facebook, although we have found there is original facebook from them but it is not really updated and developed. Here is the original facebook link of Hotel Schiff : []

From what we seen is the hotel page has shown its location associating with Bing map, moreover the address and telephone number has been also listed on the page but it does not show the actual image to potential customers in their page, people would like to see pictures and images before they decide to check in / purchase a product, in additional, they do not have a official website page linked with facebook page so customers are not able to check price range and reservations, it definitely causes a huge inconvenience for buyers.

Our group has established a new facebook page for Hotel Schiff: []

Examples: From the examples above, this one of function that Facebook provided for customers to log in to places the customers visited. From this function it allowed customers to create awareness and interaction with others that trusted them. From this recommendation and awareness, it will stimulate other customer destination decision wanting to visit that particular sites. In long term, this will definitely benefits to Hotel Schiff in term of expanding their target market to gain return in investment in a low cost marketing strategies.

__Youtube__ The first impression of this page is the hotel image as profile picture, allow customers to have a first perception of this hotel, also we have put on rooms, bars, entrance and restaurant pictures, all those pictures provide an actual concept for people get to know what is Hotel Schiff and how does it look at the first place. Morover we have also create a short video to introduce Hotel Schiff: media type="youtube" key="60BE2lg8jig" height="390" width="640". The video clip was made by imovie program, with lost of pictures that we took in the interview with the manager of hotel Schiff as well as the music that we got from youtube and then converted into mp3 format. Although it is not a big project but at least the hotel has been shown on the biggest video sharing media in the internet, we also associate the video on our new create facebook page.

__Flicker__ Recently, people like to share pictures the Internet and there are several popular websites for them to upload images as a personal photo blog. Flickr is one of the most famous photo sharing website nowadays, thousands of users sharing photos that they have taken everywhere. From this point we have decided to create an account and upload the hotel images on Flickr, here is the result if we search as “ Hotel Schiff Lucerne : [] media type="flickr" key="62090915@N08" ARG0="&lang=en-us&format=rss_200" width="500" height="500" User name:hotel Schiff Lucerne Password: hotelschiff We are trying to create a opportunity that people can share their experience / feedback in Hotel Schiff through Flickr, by looking at the pictures that we upload, it provide a general image for the potential customers. Moreover we have also join the Luzern Group on Flickr, this allows us to answer any question if someone would like to know more about Hotel Schiff on Flickr.

__Twitter__ Twitter account is created in order to support the e-marketing. Acttualy the youtube video will be put in to connect those together and some basic information of the hotel restaurant Schiff will be listed there to give the guests more information about the hotel.

http://twitter.com/#!/
user name: hotel_Schiff password: hotelschiff

__Animoto__ media type="custom" key="9195558" user name: hotel Schiff lucerne password: hotelschiff the group has registered a free account on animoto website to create a 30s video clip. the content of the clip was exactly the same with the video that posted on youtube.

__Myspace__ @http://www.myspace.com/hotel-schiff-luzern user name: hotel_schiff@hotmail.com password:1234567890 My space account was created by one member of the group by adding up the information and picture of the hotel and its restaurants.

__Prezi__ We created an account to make the prezi presentation. the presentation consists the information of the current website and what they have for e-marketing (actually they do not have) and the analysis of the local and national competitors of hotel restaurant Schiff. Giving the comparison of web marketing between hotel Schiff in Luzern and the others. Moreover, a suggestion for e-marketing will be given. media type="custom" key="9227628"

__Foursquare:__

Foursquare is an new application that work as a game, that allowed customers to log in to places they visiting to their trustworthy parties online. Foursquare is believed that it will drives repeat business, it allowed peoples to upgrade their foursquare profile to higher level named as "mayor" competing with their friends and family. This interaction has also allowed the users to leave recommendation and view suggestion about future visiting destination. Foursquare has also partnered with Zagat which is also another site-specific marketing, that allow customers directly rate a restaurant in term of food's and atmosphere quality. This will definitely help the particular restaurant to advertise to potential clients by the reputation rating. Today, Zagat include more than 70 cities around the world with other 250,000 reviews from customers in 2005. As so far we know that Hotel Schiff has not apply Foursquare application for their customers to log in. Below is an example from Schuur Konzertzentrum also located in Luzern. As you can see tipping and rating are set up to allow customers to interact and find out specif information.

Foursquare Examples :

__Official website__ The group decides to edit some parts of the current web page: THE CHART OF SUGGESTED CONNECTION BETWEEN SOCIAL MEDIA WITH THE OFFICIAL WEBSITE OF HOTEL SCHIFF
 * The pictures that put in the website should be replaced by the higher quality one to make its appearance more active, put in the picture of the famous dish of the restaurant, the different type of rooms to give the guests more choices when they want to make a reservation (especially for international tourists if they want to look for a local hotel or restaurant).
 * At the bottom of the official website, social media tags which are mentioned above should be put there. therefore, it would be easier for the loyalty guests if they want to check any new or offers that the hotel provides since social media has become an important part of the modern life.




 * Reservation system should be upgraded by provided more information of the room, price of the room in low and high season, more picture that demonstrate the room.
 * Restaurant information should be added by uploading the menu, emphasize the famous dishes of two restaurants.

21st century is the time of high technology, therefore, those social website can be reached not only by using computer but also by using smart phone, portable devices. The main point of the idea is to create more chance for the guests to get to know the hotel, by connect those social media together like chart above, the chance of knowing the hotel will be increased in order to attract more guests.

//**External Evaluation and Recommendation will be written in the Executive Summary.**//

__**References**__

[|http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Hotel-Schiff/164284360253968] (last visited 22/ 04/ 2011)

[|http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g188064-d265012-Reviews-Schiff_Hotel-Lucerne.html] (last visited 22/ 04/ 2011)

[] (last visited 22/ 04/ 2011)

[] (last visited 22/ 04/ 2011) [] (last visited 25/ 04/ 2011)

[] (last visited 25/ 04/ 2011)

[] (last visited 25/ 04/ 2011)

[] (last visited 25/ 04/ 2011)

[] (last visited 25/ 04/ 2011)

[|http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Hotel-Schiff/118711528187146] (last visited 26/ 04/ 2011)

[|http://www.wordstream.com/popular-keywords/hotel-keywords] (last visited 26/ 04/ 2011)