Meliá's 330 Weekly Social Booking Enquiries Expose a Leadership Gap

Meliá Hotels International was fielding roughly 330 booking enquiries a week through its social inbox before most hotel boards treated social media as a commercial channel at all. That figure, from a published case study shared by Santiago García Solimei, former Global Head of Social Media and Brands PR at Meliá, anchors the core argument of Alisa Kremer, founder of consultancy KORDIE and the Hospitality Social Media Summit (HoSS): hotels organize social around what they publish, not the decisions it influences.

Meliá ran more than 500 social accounts across central teams, properties and agencies, and booking enquiries were arriving with no unified way to handle them, Kremer noted. The group's response — a dedicated social care operation — is exactly the kind of reorganization she believes the wider industry needs before 2027 planning cycles.

What does the booking journey actually look like?

The typical younger traveller finds a property through a creator, checks what other guests say, and asks an AI assistant to compare it with two alternatives, Kremer said. By the time they reach the booking page, the decision is largely made.

Hotels, though, often measure only the last visible step. A guest discovers a property on Instagram, compares it, then books after a branded search — and last-click reporting credits search while social's contribution disappears. Crediting the whole booking to social would be equally misleading, Kremer said. Her prescription: look together at whether a property reaches priority guests, at intent signals such as branded search and enquiries, and at what happens to direct bookings and acquisition costs over time.

Who owns conversion?

Sometimes the answer is nobody, Kremer said. A hotel can meet every departmental KPI and still lose the booking, because the journey crosses marketing, digital, revenue, distribution and guest experience. Someone needs accountability for the entire journey, with clear ownership at each handoff.

The pricing angle is direct. Remove the logo from most hotel content and it could belong to a dozen competitors — the same room, the same breakfast, the same sunset. "It sells the category, not the property," Kremer said. When guests can't see a meaningful difference, price becomes the easiest comparison. Her test: could a competitor publish your content under its own name without anyone noticing? If so, the guest has little reason to pay your rate.

What does AI change?

AI doesn't create sameness; it makes sameness cheaper to produce, Kremer argues. A property with nothing distinctive to say can now say it beautifully, at volume. As production gets easier, judgement and genuine brand assets gain value — knowing which guests to pursue and which experiences competitors can't copy.

The bigger strategic shift is who assembles the shortlist. An AI assistant can compare properties before a traveller ever visits a hotel website, so being absent or misrepresented in that answer can mean missing consideration altogether. Kremer's practical advice: ask several assistants how they would recommend your hotel to a target traveller, then ask who in the business is responsible for what you find.

What should budgets fund?

Start with the constraint, not the shopping list. If guests arrive interested but abandon a difficult booking process, buying more reach makes that weakness more expensive. Kremer's sequence: fix booking obstacles first, then measurement, then team judgement — because each increases the value of the next.

In October, KORDIE screened more than 200 publicly listed hospitality social media roles. The pattern: commercial goals appear frequently, but explicit responsibility for bookings remains uncommon. Kremer's summary of the capability gap: hire for judgement, train for tools, and stop expecting one role to cover five disciplines.

For 2027, her message to GMs and boards is blunt. A content calendar is not a commercial strategy; ask which guest decision the investment is meant to influence and who is accountable when interest fails to convert. Stop funding one-off influencer stays without clear purpose or rights, and stop treating publishing frequency as progress — sometimes the most effective strategy is to produce less. The advantage, she said, will belong less to hotels that publish the most and more to those organized to turn attention into lasting commercial value.