Customer Decision Journey

Four Seasons HotelsVirginie Guittard

Livia DavidBérénice Roure

MBA 2 A

Introduction: Four Seasons Company

Four Seasons Hotels, Inc. is a Canadian-based international luxury, five-star hotel management company The hotel chain has 92 properties among the top luxury hotels worldwide The company has been named one of the "100 Best Companies to Work For" by Fortune every year since the survey's inception in 1998.

In 2011 Four Seasons celebrated its 50th Anniversary, and announced through their livingvalues.fourseasons.com website that they had decided to launched their 10 Million Trees campaign in which they committeed to plant 10 million trees around the world over the next few years.

Ranking Distribution First One: Website:Effectiveness of brand site through its reservation motor, Customers service, and strong loyalty programs.A strong brand translation by aesthetic and messaging and visuals Second One: Social MediaAn efficient brand presence with a huge range of social community media: Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Pinterest , Google +, Instagram, Foursquare.

Third one: MobileLaunching of special application on smartphone –Android + Iphone

Focus Ranking Distribution: Digital Marketing

Fourth One : Digital MarketingThe brand makes important efforts with their customers’ relation through an active Email marketing. Collaboration with Data companies.

Example: - Newsletters every month- Offers emailing regularly- Rewards for loyalty customers

Areas to improveAccording to guests’ feedbacks (TripAdvisors.com & Booking.com & Expedia.com):

Lake of itinerary’s information in the website: For some hotels of the chain, no clear direction to access to hotels. -> Our suggestion: Creation of online tools in association with Google Map

Lake of creativity and innovation: In comparison with its competitors, the company use all the time same concept, and doesn’t innovate. -> Our suggestion: Have a more budget & resource and development. Be more people oriented.

Four Season’s Hotels – OTA’s StrategyFour Season’s hotels decided to have a different approach concerning the

communication of its products.

Facing the preferential rate of the OTA’s, Four Season Company focuses its communication in Social Media. Indeed, OTA’s communicate only by a promotional sales’ prices.The Four Season Hotels’ strategy allows to create a special and interactive link between the customers and chain. Four seasons Company put forward its presence in Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Pinterest, … etc.

Conclusion: A complex decision process

The multitude and diversity of online platforms turns the customers decision journey into a complex process. The fourth rank of Four Seasons which seems to be different with the other international hospitality brands, shows the prosperity of the company. In fact, for 5 years, the brand position its self as the first famous brand in the heart of consumers. Four Seasons decided to use a other strategy; which is the strong presence in social media, to better communicate, and retain a link with its customers; It’s seems to be a real competitive advantage.

However, this year the company lost 3 rank in the Top 10 of the best hospitality brands, because the competitors are more creative and imaginative such as using co-

branding. W Hotel (Starwood) use music and films contests.