This chapter focuses on the potential impact that the type of luxury tourism consumption may have on digital communication strategies of luxury hotels. Through a qualitative approach, the present study investigates how “internalized” (i.e., driven by individual style) versus “externalized” (i.e., driven by status symbols) luxury tourists' motivations show up in the hospitality-related online context. Specifically, the chapter sheds light on how those two luxury consumption motivations lead tourists to share online different textual contents. Findings show that the internalized luxury motivations seem to mainly drive tourists' experiences in luxury hotels, when shared online. The chapter discusses potential reasons for such a characterization and provides managerial suggestions for luxury tourism companies that want to target internalized versus externalized luxury tourists.
TopIntroduction
Globalization and the pervasive spread of digital communication have led companies to change their marketing strategies in order to understand the customers in a deeper way (Belk, 2019; Karakas, 2009; Tiago, 2014) and develop new ways of communicating and interact with them (Kim & Ko, 2012). These changes play a crucial role in “information-intensive” sectors such as luxury tourism. Indeed, the need to base management decisions on data is nowadays crucial for companies in this sector so as to improve the customer experience (Amatulli et al., 2019; Jackson, 2016; Law et al., 2014). The luxury market experienced a 5% growth in 2018, achieving estimated €1.2 trillion globally, with positive performance across most segments (Bain&Company, 2018). Even if luxury companies are only recently exploring the digital world lately, it is now playing a leading role in this context. The ongoing evolution of online marketing strategies and the related product customization are making luxury customers active contributors of decision-making processes, which now entails tight dialogues between customers and companies. Extant sociological and economic studies (Veblen, 1899) investigated the essence of and reason for luxury consumption, but the vast majority of marketing studies have been published since the beginning of the 2000s. Emerging streams of research in this area regard modern luxury experiences and their implications for marketing managers (Mazzalovo & Chevalier, 2008; Kapferer & Bastien, 2012).
In order to increase knowledge in this field of research, this chapter analyses luxury tourism experiences focusing on the digital communication strategies of luxury hotels. As a matter of fact, luxury consumer acquisition and retention is becoming increasingly complex, due to two different ways consumers approach the market and purchase luxury goods. Consumers are increasingly motivated to purchase products that can offer them emotional benefits. This is clear in the luxury sector. The global luxury goods industry (including both products and services) was worth approximately €915 billion in 2017, with expectations that it will reach a valuation of nearly €1.260 billion by 2024 (Boston Consulting Group, 2018). However, such numbers could be even higher when focusing on what Silverstein et al. (2003) consider as the “new luxury” market. According to them, consumers tend to purchase “new luxury” products to which they feel emotionally connected. The “new luxury” is no longer limited to conventional luxury goods such as diamonds, furs and expensive cars (described as “old luxury” by Silverstein et al., 2003), but it may include any kind of product, even a simple sandwich.