Sociable is the new hospitable

3. Twitter for customer and concierge services

 Initially, Twitter was built for personal use and has become yet another social network that more and more businesses are effectively using to engage and connect with their users. People follow a profile on Twitter because they find them relevant and interesting. People also follow profiles they have an affinity towards as well as those profiles that directly impact their personal lives.

Twitter can be effectively used as a customer service and concierge tool. It can be a powerful one stop solution for customer grievances and concierge support where guests could have their queries solved in an instant as well as get relevant info about their whereabouts and travel services. Through the twitter feed, they would also be able to see past recommendations and reviews from other guests. Twitter through replies, retweets and direct replies (DM) is effective to keep in touch with past and prospective customers real time.

4. Trip Advisor

Without doubt the best specialized social media website for the travel and tourism industry. Look for a hotel and you will find it there. Have doubt about an attraction, look for user reviews and you will know if you are wasting money. Don’t know how to get to a location, use the forums and you are sure to get some answers soon. User generated content, especially user photos and videos will help you paint the true picture and not just was the property or locations wants you to see.

Staying in a hotel before to check for the stars previous guests have give. What’s more, you will also find an active participation from the property owners themselves. So you are a property and not on Trip Advisor you sure a missing a lot of intelligent tourist who not only drag themselves to your property but a bunch of other because of their reach. The only thing Trip Advisor lacks in a good restaurant recommendation service but fear not because...

5. Burrp.com and Zomato.com

are here to fill the gap. For all those foodies who are looking to dine in locations they have never been to these are sites, which won’t disappoint you. Locations, pictures, menus, reviews, maps, recommendations, they have it all. Maybe not a pureplay social networking service, in my books it would qualify as one and hence as restaurant own if you are not engaging with users and working these sites, you are sure to miss out on something in years to come.

6. Blogs, Video, Photo…speak more than words

And you don’t believe me have a look at Indiamike.com for travel in India or seat61.com for train travel across the world. Media sharing sites like Flickr, YouTube, and Vimeo allow users to share their experiences with others through photos and videos and as a result have become the biggest archives for media items accessible by the online community.

Businesses can expand their own website content by drawing user content from Flickr and Youtube alongside the traditional photos and videos. For instance, have a "guest gallery" that pulls images from Flickr posted by your guests or a trip advisor rating on you blog. Content provided by users/ guests especially their feedback through social media, reviewer and blog sites is considered to be more authentic and reliable because it is created and provided by a neutral third party.

Yashraj Vakil, COO, Red Digital