Meliá Koh Samui
#TropicalLuxury
THE CHALLENGE
Give me an unfamiliar hotel brand. Done. Give me an exotic opening. Yup. Give me big corporate expectations. Got it. Now, give me COVID times with on-and-off lockdowns. What do we have? Tears (lots of them) yes, but what else? The biggest challenge of the year? Damn right. Meliá, this yet unknown though super sexy hospitality player was about to open its first resort in Thailand (and Asia for that matter) amid some of the most uncertain times in travel history. Sounds like an agency Tuesday.
THE IDEA
Back up. Now let's look at the "bright side": Thailand's domestic market wasn't impacted THAT bad by travel restrictions. Though Samui clearly is marketed as foreign tourists destination, it was time to turn things around and appeal to our most unexpected customers: locals. Rather than selling a resort, we had to start from the ground up and focus on the destination, positioning Samui as tropical shelter, home of the most exciting opening of the year while injecting some much-needed optimism.
We had our angle.
OUR RESPONSE
A new opening requires a lot of content. Even more so when the brand lacks local awareness and authority. It's about giving an in-depth look at what the brand stands for, exciting prospects while building top-of-mind notoriety. But Meliá had none of that and we were staring at a blank page. Immediately we sent out our creative team of content creators on site to create a stunning storytelling around the brand, content that we would in turn use across our social media platforms to amplify the opening.
18%
Organic Engagement Rate
vs 8-10% industry average
Though first results were encouraging, this was only the beginning. From experience, we knew a new hotel opening usually comes with a fair share of PR exposure, which surely added a temporary boost to our social media efforts. If we were to keep up with that level of engagement on the long-term and turn it into actual bookings, it was crucial that we made our social content meaningful, but also relatable. Understand: give a good reason to our audience to fly to Samui and stay at Meliá.
Selfless content
Blog Posts
Flash incentives
Things were getting quite serious. Community was thriving, engagement was growing and word-of-mouth was turning into a spike in bookings. We were putting Meliá on the map!
796K
social media users reached within the first 6 months - no ads!
Now that we had a solid and organically sustainable community, the hardest part was achieved. But let's be real, in a pandemic where nearly 80% of international tourists are locked outside of the country, occupancy rate is never has high as it should. And to limit the effects of having to rely only on a niche domestic market, we activated part 2 of the strategy: getting tactical.
Generate immediate bookings around specific holidays through flash-incentives
Hire influencers to review and advocate Meliá to a local crowd
+87%
in booking inquiries
(Messenger, Instagram & LINE@)
Sneak peek at some of our influencer partners. We handpicked all profiles and created a stunning storytelling designed to position Meliá Samui as a quick and cozy escape to escape the restrictive atmosphere of the city.