Digital Snapshot of hotels in Qatar

                                            

Qatar is today one of the fastest growing economies across the globe. The small gulf country with a population of just 1.87 million enjoys a per capita Gross national income (GNI) of over USD 80,000. Qatar, where the economy has so far been dependent on vast oil and natural gas reserves is now making swift forays into various other alternative sectors, hospitality and tourism being one of them. Qatar’s tourism industry is still in its nascent stage compared to rival UAE; however it is evolving very fast. Huge investments are undertaken to develop state of the art hotels, convention centers, restaurants and service apartments etc. Most of the world class hotels have started building their presence in country.

Given the fact the tourism is one of the sunrise sectors in Qatar; our research team at Mixilion has undertaken a task to do a detailed analysis of the digital presence of the hotel industry in Qatar. Some of the key insights of the research analysis go as follow-

• Digital Presence- The digital presence of the various hotels in Qatar cannot be very easily generalized. The overall digital presence varies from one hotel to another. There are hotels with very strong digital and social media presence, where as there are ones were the digital strategy seems to undefined.

• Social Media- Some of the hotels seem to have a clear cut social media strategy. For instance, W Doha Hotel and Residence. The hotel has over 12,000 Facebook fans. The overall content strategy which is a blend of international appeal and the local charm appears to be very appealing. On the other side of the spectrum there are many hotels which are yet to realize the importance of a Facebook page.

• Background Color- White is one of the preferred background colors for the website. However there are hotels with background color as black and others as well.

• Contact Us- In the contact us section, most of the hotels have put their phone numbers, however most of them (baring few) haven’t put their email ids. However it is essential to understand the fact that for many, emails are the preferred mode for initial communication.

• Testimonials and Feedback- Many hotels in Doha have not realized the importance of testimonials and feedbacks. Only a very few have put testimonials on the home page of their website. For a place like Qatar, which is relatively new on the tourism map, having a testimonial and feedback section can be a brand booster.