Hotelier Academy presents a Case Study regarding the development of a Hotel’s Instagram profile, in collaboration with Astra Villa and Destsetters, which shows how to easily create both the necessary material and your communication strategy on social media.

10 mins read

Instagram is arguably one of the most essential social media channels in terms of Hotel Promotion since travellers use it as a medium to get the most reliable look at the accommodation’s offered experience. Although it is not a means of booking, it certainly contributes to the travellers’ final decision and even more so to the exploration of the experience, they will live.

But how do we create our Hotel’s Instagram content that will really enhance our accommodation’s communication strategy? The answer is simple, but first, we need to understand in which way Instagram affects travellers.

More specifically:

  • Potential travellers discover the places they want to visit through their daily Instagram scroll. Therefore, an impressive and, above all, recognizable hotel content, contributes to bringing new audiences to our accommodation, as it will be easily distinguishable. Creating an aesthetic identity and discernible experiences become the key to success while there are many accommodations that have managed to open new markets through their Instagram audience.
  • During the market research on hotel booking, many travellers check the Instagram Accounts of their candidate accommodations, which they have discovered usually in OTAs, in order to get a more real-life picture of the hotel. The consistent updating of your hotel’s profile with a more ‘realistic’ content, which should be different from the branding photoshoot, plays a decisive role in enhancing the trustworthiness of the accommodation, as well as the final choice of the traveller.
  • In most cases, when the booking is completed, more and more travellers explore the hotel’s profile to see the real experience they offer. At this stage, the storytelling character of the content plays an essential role, since travellers discover both the real feeling of the hotel and the things-to-do. In addition, here lies the possibility of future upselling of services but also the avoidance of cancellation, as travellers will already be engaged with the experience.

Keeping in mind the real role of Instagram for hotels, below we will present how you can practically create the Instagram material of your hotel in just 2 days, using only a high-quality mobile phone and working with the people of your accommodation. For this special Case Study, we chose the unique Astra Villa, an autonomous accommodation owned by the luxury Astra Suites in Santorini. The overall strategy of the project was curated by Zenios Zeniou from the Destsetters’ team. Subsequently, you will find the main pillars on which the creation of the Case Study material was based, while you will also be able to see the final result at the end of the article.

Why were Astra Villa and the Destsetters team chosen?

Astra Villa is one of the most beautiful and special villas in Santorini since it offers a plethora of experiences that differentiate it from other accommodations. Focusing on its people and its unique location, Astra Villa was an ideal Case Study in order to prove that an interesting concept can be set up, even in a villa.

Destsetters, as a Concept, Hotel Strategy and Tourism Projects development company, was able to provide the necessary foundations to the required Storytelling character of the Instagram strategy, essentially capturing the accommodation’s offered experience. With significant experience in Hotel Digital Marketing but also in Hotel Experience Making, Destsetters approached the history of Astra Villa in a unique way, forming an original Instagram Project.

*Sponsored

Astra Suites is one of the top hotels in the Caldera, specifically in the village of Imerovigli, which offers high-quality services, while highlighting the Greek hospitality in the best way.

Arriving at Astra Suites, an ultimate luxury experience awaits you as every small detail has been curated by the hotel management team, especially for you.

Experience unique moments of relaxation in the central infinity pool and pool bar, try the special flavors served at the Astra Restaurant, and rejuvenate yourself thanks to the treatments offered at the hotel’s “Relaxation Area”.

Contact us to learn how to promote your company in Hotelier Academy

 

Step 1: Use a cell phone with a very good camera resolution. Don’t plan your shots, let them occur naturally during the stay, as a normal traveller would experience them.

Hotels, most of the time, upload to their various channels impressive shots from their official photoshoot. However, a social media channel like Instagram requires special material, as it is a medium in which people tend to “capture” their personal experiences in a more casual way. Hotels should also follow this rule so that their posts do not look like advertisements. For this reason, instead of professional equipment, two high-technology mobile phones with very good camera resolution were used, in order for the result to appear as natural as possible, while maintaining its high standards in terms of photo quality. By the same token, Instagram’s photoshoot material was not planned but followed the natural course of the visitor’s stay, capturing the experience in the most realistic way, so as not to produce sophisticated shots, which will reduce the real image that travellers want to find when logging into a social media account.

💡 Special Note by Destsetters
Although the ideal Instagram material can indeed be produced using only mobile phones, there are now special production companies that specialize in realistic social media material, using a variety of equipment and special image formats with a particularly impressive result. Destsetters undertakes the specification and supervision of such material production, always in collaboration with the Hotel Owner, turning Instagram into a real point of sale.

Contact us to discuss the needs of your own hotel project.

 

Step 2: Identify the Storyline of your accommodation’s experience and select Landmark elements and reference points, which will offer a recognizable character to the Instagram material that will be created.

As the recognizable identity of the photos is the key to the success of a Hotel Instagram Account, the first thing that was identified in the Astra Villa Project was the elements that would make the photos identifiable, aiming that an image would directly be linked to the property. Thus, either specific objects or spots with a characteristic view were selected and highlighted, in order to set the stage for the recognizable experience. Then, a spontaneous Storyline was developed, dividing the shots into categories such as Design & Lifestyle, People and Signature Experiences, in order to get a more methodical material production. These material categories will be the skeleton of all communication and the canvas of Instagram communication from the hereafter.

The Landmarks:

After selecting the signature spots, they were included in the appropriate category, aiming at a more engaged communication with the audience.

The People:

As people play a key role in the experience offered by a hotel, they are also an essential part of our Instagram communication, allowing for an immediate and dynamic engagement of travellers with the faces of the accommodation. More specifically, the Project presented:

  • The Manager: It is the service reference point of the specific villa.
  • The Housekeeper: The most central person to assist travellers, with whom they have daily contact.
  • The Chef and his team: They care about one of the unique experiences of the accommodation.

The Signature Experience:

Each accommodation must provide one or more unique experiences, which Instagram gives you the opportunity to present in the most realistic way. The Astra Villa Project, both with its specially designed services and its unique operation service, provided two pillars of signature experiences for its Instagram Feed, which were captured in the most direct way.

  • The Cliff Barbeque: A special private event set up on the pool terrace, focusing on Monolith Barbeque, combined with the perfect personalized service from the Villa’s Food Crew.
  • The Stunning Sunset: The world-famous Santorini sunset, framed in a unique way in Astra Villa, enhancing the feeling of the phenomenon.

Design & Lifestyle:

The Design and Lifestyle of an accommodation are elements that significantly determine the visitor’s experience. Instagram gives us the opportunity to transform them into a why-to-choose factor for the accommodation, as there are many who check the Social Media Profiles of their candidate hotels. Since the design and the in-Villa Facilities of Astra Villa are one of a kind, they made it possible to capture a series of spontaneous shots, which complete the puzzle of the stay and offer the visitor a look at the overall experience. This set of images includes snapshots from:

  • Interiors of Astra Villa and outdoor images
  • Experiences such as breakfast, service and casual time at the property
  • Products that travellers will use during their stay

*Sponsored

Create your own Visual Experience Concept of your Hotel with Destsetters

“If you want a dynamic rebranding of your Hotel, we specify the Communication Concept and create all the necessary Visual Material in collaboration with authorized photographers and production houses, so that we can formulate a strategic communication plan. In essence, we specify the photoshoot according to what we want to sell but also the hotel experiences, we participate in the production and then we apply this content to all the necessary channels, in order to achieve aesthetic homogeneity and proper promotion of the services and experiences. At the same time, we recommend you the accompanying content that should be created, according to the material, for the best possible results, while we also undertake its development for you, always following both SEO rules and techniques, for the establishment of your accommodation’s Brand Story.”

Zenios Zeniou, Hotel Concept Maker

 

Contact Destsetters

 

Step 3: Choose an aesthetic color palette and group your material according to the themes of your posts. Create the Instagram Account of your accommodation, where the content will be uploaded, and use selected hashtags, which offer added value.

After the material was created, and as no professional equipment was used, a signature filter was selected, which gave a uniform character to the images but also created a recognizable visual identity. Then, after researching the high-interest hashtags, the necessary descriptions were determined, and the profile of the Astra Villa Project was created. Landmarks, Experience, People, Sunset, and Barbeque were created as Highlights from the beginning since they are the main pillars for both posts and stories, as well as for the new material that will be produced from now on. The original material was uploaded to Instagram, in order to give an initial appearance to the profile of Astra Villa, while from now on the content production will be done by the people of the accommodation, who, of course, will follow the original specification.

See all the material produced here.

Conclusion

Astra Villa‘s Case Study is one of the special projects of Destsetters, which want to show in practice both the proposed practices and methodologies and the produced result. In collaboration with selected Hotels and Companies, realistic examples of best practices are expected to be created, with the aim of developing the hotel market.