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Tourism, Culture & Communication, Vol. 16, pp. 137–145 1098-304X/16 $60.00 + .00

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137

Address correspondence to Melissa Clark, Associate Professor of Marketing, Coastal Carolina University, P.O. Box 261954, Conway,

SC 29528-6054, USA. Tel: (843) 349-2662; E-mail: mclark2@coastal.edu

THE USE OF SINA WEIBO AND TWITTER BY

INTERNATIONAL LUXURY HOTELS

WEN WU,* MELISSA CLARK,† BOMI KANG,† AND MONICA FINE†

*Zhejiang Normal University, Zhejiang, China

†Department of Marketing and Resort Tourism, Coastal Carolina University, Conway, SC, USA

Social media is a valuable marketing tool in the hospitality and tourism industry. Microblogging sites

(social media sites comprised of concise, frequent posts) have allowed customers to discuss brands

online with other customers across the globe. Focusing on the international luxury hotel segment, this

article compares Twitter in the US and Sina Weibo in China. We collected data from both sites using

content analysis and analyzed it using independent chi-square tests. The results suggest that luxury

hotels communicated their messages and brand images differently through Twitter and Sina Weibo

and provided additional promotion activities on Sina Weibo to attract customers in China.

Key words: Microblogs; Sina Weibo; Twitter; International luxury hotels; Marketing strategy

Introduction

With the development of the Internet, informa-

tion can spread widely and quickly to a multitude

of online users, subverting a linear one-way com-

munication process. Communication is not limited

to producer-to-consumer, but can occur consumer-

to-consumer and consumer-to-producer, as well as

many-to-one, one-to-many, one-to-one, or many-to-

many (Buhalis, 2003). Social media communica-

tions afford an opportunity to build relationships and

engage with customers online (Linnes, Kowalski,

Lema, Lam, & Agrusa, 2014). This differs from the

traditional model, in which marketers encode and

send social media messages through social media

sites, and customers receive and decode the mes-

sages (Kunal, Brown, & Milne, 2014).

Rapid growth in social media users has attracted

the attention of service industry marketers seek-

ing to increase online exposure with consumers

and improve brand loyalty (Sledgianowski &

Kulviwat, 2009). Among all social media sites

that allow people to connect, engage, and share

with others based on common interests (Stankov,

Lazić, & Dragićević, 2010), microblogging sites

have become one of the most popular sites. It is

a new form of social media site comprising short

posts distributed by instant message, mobile

phone, e-mail, or the web (Java, Finin, Song, &

Tseng, 2007).

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138 WU ET AL.

The travel industry in China benefits both from

social media use and the gradually rising living con-

ditions in China, whereby the Chinese middle class

now has more time to travel. In 2013, 97 million

Chinese tourists traveled abroad (Hedrick-Wong &

Choong, 2015). The booming tourist market in

China has brought changes to international hotel

segments; various international hotel chains have

tailor-made packages to serve the unique prefer-

ences of Chinese travelers. For example, IHG

developed a new five-star hotel brand especially

for the mainland market (Y. Yang, 2011).

In the highly competitive hotel industry, micro-

blog sites such as Twitter and Sina Weibo play

an important role in building brand image and

loyalty, while targeting potentially different mar-

kets. This underscores the importance of tailoring

international social media marketing strategies to

different countries’ contexts, as social media is an

outcome of technology, media, and creative users

(X. Yang & Wang, 2015). With Twitter banned in

China, we can examine international luxury hotel

brands’ social media marketing strategies targeted

for the Chinese market by comparing Sina Weibo

and Twitter. This study aims to observe and com-

pare the characteristics of Sina Weibo and Twitter

in international luxury hotels, exploring whether

international luxury hotels adopt distinct mar-

keting communication strategies for microblogs

depending on the market: Sina Weibo for Chinese

or Twitter for outside of China.

Background and Hypotheses

Microblogging and Luxury Hotels

Microblogs are widely adapted in the ser-

vice industry in order to promote communication

exchanges between the service providers and their

customers. Primary uses include sharing compli-

ments and general information about the company,

as well as asking questions and providing personal

updates (Sreenivasan, Lee, & Goh, 2012).

The largest microblogging site, Twitter, was

founded in 2006 and reports 316 million active

users posting 500 million tweets per day (https://

about.twitter.com/company). It is now used (under

various regulations) in nearly every country in the

world, with the exception of a few, including China.

Social media in China suffers from active censor-

ship through Internet provider blocking of foreign

websites and search engine filtering (Bamman,

O’Connor, & Smith, 2012). Facebook, Twitter,

Instagram, Flickr, to name a few, are blocked in

China, and the government deletes any posted

messages. In this context, global hotel brands

have to find social media platforms to communi-

cate to Chinese travelers, whom have now become

one of the principal market segments for any

international travel enterprise (Hedrick-Wong &

Choong, 2015).

Microblogging is relatively new to Chinese users;

yet, it is the most popular social media channel in

China (State of the media, 2012). Microblogs like

Reren (www.reren.com), Sina Weibo (us.weibo.

com/gb), and Tencent Weibo (t.qq.com) together

capture about 91% of Internet users and are used

for governmental, personal, and business purposes

in mainland China (Go-Globe.com, 2013).

Sina Weibo is the most popular microblogging

platform in China according to the most recent stud-

ies conducted by China Internet Network Informa-

tion Center (2014). It includes web links, hashtags,

tags, and the ability to attach images, video, and

audio files to posts. Founded in 2009, Sina Weibo

has more than 167 million active users per month

(Jianrui, 2014) and generates large volumes of data,

representing significant consumer insights (Cheng

& Edwards, 2015).

Compared to traditional marketing outlets, social

media sites, including microblogging sites such

as Twitter and Sina Weibo, allow hotels to expe-

rience two-way communication (Taylor, Barber,

& Deale, 2015). This two-way communication

affects the travel industry, such as when travelers

use social media to share their personal reviews

of hotels and obtain information from other users

(Xiang & Gretzel, 2010), which has dynamically

changed the way that travelers make hotel-choice

decisions (McCarthy, Stock, & Verma, 2010). A

positive word-of-mouth reputation can result from

improved customer-to-business interactions and

customer participation via social media (Kim &

Hardin, 2010).

Considering the variety of available social media

sites, companies should learn about each plat-

form’s different functionality to make an informed

decision about which to utilize for marketing

http://www.reren.com
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SINA WEIBO AND TWITTER USE BY LUXURY HOTELS 139

purposes (Hays, Page, & Buhalis, 2013; Kietzmann,

Hermkens, McCarthy, & Silvestre, 2011). As for

Twitter, users can interact with others, anywhere

at any time, in the form of a tweet, retweet, or

reply. Tweets can include pictures, videos, audio

clips, and links for extending the content. In addi-

tion, marketers can design their Twitter profiles to

uniquely identify their brand image. Interestingly,

some guests are more likely to think a luxury hotel

is unsuccessful if the hotel lacks a Twitter account

(Tselepidakis, 2013). Thus, Twitter should be taken

into account for luxury hotel’s brand strategy in

digital marketplaces.

In an interview with Felicia Yukich, manager of

social media marketing for Four Seasons Hotels,

she offered the following:

We found that guests use social media, notably

Twitter, to comment on their satisfaction during a

stay. Because of this, we have incorporated Twitter

into our service delivery, so we are able to address

issues, anticipate needs and generally surprise and

delight the guest, using information they have

shared publicly as well. (Mogelousky, 2011).

Brand Image Strategy and Marketing Approaches

Building a favorable brand image can be even

more important for luxury hotels than for other seg-

ments of the hotel industry, and social media can

significantly shape a brand image (Cervellon &

Galipienzon, 2015). The success of social media

communications for brands depends in part on how

well their users engage with and share messages

about the brand (Berger & Milkman, 2012). A posi-

tive social media experience leads to a positive atti-

tude toward the brand’s social media account and the

hotel brand more generally (Leung, Bai, & Stahura,

2015). As such, Twitter accounts are widely used for

improving customer service by tourism bureaus and

international hotel chains: they use it as a way to

find future guests and a gateway for resolving prob-

lems (Kessler, 2010). For example, Hyatt Interna-

tional and Premier Inn launched a Twitter concierge

program in 2009 (Kessler, 2010), and upscale hotel

brands are increasingly using this platform to com-

municate about the quality of experience as a part of

their brand awareness strategy (Xu & Chan, 2010).

Luxury hotels utilize social media sites to com-

municate traditional promotional strategies as well.

For example, tweets are widely used in aid to

hotels’ promotional efforts, including to offer fol-

lowers sales, discounts, and special rates (Taylor et

al., 2015). In this dual manner, Twitter can quickly

share information and news with followers and

anyone interested in the company’s products and

services, which provides an opportunity to build

relationships and engage with customers (Linnes et

al., 2014).

Yet, a multitude of research suggests that tourism

and hospitality organizations struggle to formulate

timely and effective marketing communication

strategies on newer social media platforms (Hays et

al., 2013; X. Yang & Wang, 2015). As such, our cur-

rent research examines international luxury hotels’

use of different marketing communication strate-

gies on Twitter and Sina Weibo when encoding

posts to motivate their Chinese and US customers.

We also investigated the use of luxury international

hotels’ company image, user’s image, and product/

service image in Twitter and Sina Weibo. We evalu-

ate additional brand identifiers such as links, tags,

and hashtags for their effectiveness on hotel com-

munications with site users.

Methods

Data

This study is divided into two parts; the first part

describes the content of Twitter and Sina Weibo

posts by the international luxury hotel brands, aim-

ing to understand how they affect their target con-

sumers. The second part analyzes how these hotels

use different communication strategies across these

contexts in view of the distinctions between US and

Chinese consumer markets.

Sites like Twitter and Sina Weibo are real-time

engagement tools; the news feed updates very

quickly, and posts do not appear for long due to

the vast amount of real-time information posted

on these platforms. For a small-scale exploratory

research, we decided to conduct a cross-sectional

data collection for a 1-week timeframe. The data

were collected from March 23, 2015 to March

29, 2015 on international luxury hotel brands iden-

tified by Walker (2012). According to the Smith

Travel Research’s SHARE center (2014), the luxury

hotel class account for 909,754 rooms and 5,703

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140 WU ET AL.

properties globally. The average daily rate for

a typical luxury hotel is $270.24, and it ranges

from $259 to $659 according to Walker (2012).

Out of 90 global luxury hotel chains, there were

only 15 luxury hotels that have both Twitter and

Sina Weibo accounts. All the posts on Twitter and

Sina Weibo from these 15 hotels were captured

and assessed using content analysis. This yielded

117 posts generated by the hotels’ official Sina

Weibo accounts, and 427 posts generated by their

Twitter accounts. Table 1 shows the breakdown of

Sina Weibo posts and Twitter posts for international

luxury hotel brands. There were 3.7 times more

Twitter posts during the time period. Finally, chi-

square tests were performed to examine how each

content are communicated via these platforms to

the Chinese in contrast to US market.

Content Analysis and Chi-Square Tests

Every post, including images, videos, tags,

hashtags, links, and other information, was coded

in this study. Each post was categorized into a spe-

cific theme, such as the topic of the post, the type

of content, the type of users’ response to the hotels’

advertising, sales promotion, brand image strategy,

interactivity with users, message appeal, etc. The

results aim to provide an overview of international

luxury hotels’ use of microblogging sites. A content

analysis is the most appropriate research method,

because it is fundamentally exploratory, concerned

with real phenomena, and predictive in intent

(Krippendorf, 1980). Sometimes, a post comprised

only a few words, making it difficult to determine

the appropriate topic category. In that case, the pic-

ture or link was used to determine the topic. The

content analysis yielded eight underlying themes

extracted from messages communicated on two

microblog sites, namely advertising, sales promo-

tions, company image, user image, product and ser-

vice image, links, hashtags, and tags (see Table 2).

Using the identified categories, researchers per-

formed a series of chi-square tests of independence

to examine marketing communication strategies in

two types of microblogging platforms: Twitter and

Sina Weibo.

Findings and Analysis

Figure 1 shows topics published by luxury

hotels on Twitter and Sina Weibo. Overall, luxury

hotels post mostly unique content on each site;

only 10% of the posts are similar on Twitter and

Sina Weibo, and the majority of Twitter posts are

shorter than those on Sina Weibo, which implies

there are salient variances in the two microblog

sites for Chinese and non-Chinese market. To men-

tion a few examples, luxury hotels are more likely

Table 1

Total Number of International Luxury Hotel Posts on Twitter and Sina Weibo

Hotel Twitter Username (Date) Weibo Username (Date)

Twitter

Posts

Weibo

Posts

Accor @Accorhotels (June 2009) @雅高酒店 (April 2012) 48 13 Best Western International @BestWestern (Feb. 2009) @贝斯特韦斯特酒店集团 (Mar. 2011) 18 0 DoubleTree by Hilton @doubletree (Jan. 2009) @希尔顿逸林 (July 2012) 12 13 Fairmont @FairmontHotels (Aug. 2008) @费尔蒙酒店 (May 2011) 24 13 Four Seasons @FourSeasons (Dec. 2008) @四季酒店_FOURSEASONS (Aug. 2011) 19 14 Hyatt @HyattTweets (July 2009) @凯悦酒店集团HYATT (Feb. 2012) 31 6 InterContinental Hotels Group @IHG (Jan. 2009) @IHGRewardsClub-优悦会 (Dec. 2011) 2 15 Kempinski Hotels @Kempinski (Sept. 2009) @凯宾斯基酒店集团_ (Jan. 2011) 9 5 Le Meridien Hotels & Resorts @LeMeridien (June 2009) @艾美酒店及度假村 (Feb. 2012) 4 3 Marriott International @MarriottIntl (March 2008) @万豪酒店及度假酒店 (Oct. 2012) 29 8 Ritz-Carlton @RitzCarlton (April 2008) @丽思卡尔顿酒店 (Aug. 2013) 161 8 St Regis @stregishotels (Feb. 2014) @瑞吉酒店及度假村St Regis (Aug. 2012) 7 3 Westin @Westin (June 2009) @威斯汀Westin (Oct. 2011) 5 1 W Hotel @WHotels (June 2009) @W酒店 (Oct. 2011) 43 1 Waldorf Astoria @WaldorfAstoria (April 2011) @华尔道夫酒店与度假村 (May 2013) 15 14 Total 427 117

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SINA WEIBO AND TWITTER USE BY LUXURY HOTELS 141

to post information such as relevant news stories or

personal interest topics on Twitter and to publish

interactive activities such as contests or games on

Sina Weibo. As seen in Figure 1, the most common

topics on both sites include nearby attractions.

Luxury hotels tend to recommend nearby scenery

or landscapes, particularly in tourist destinations.

Another common topic concerns the actual hotel

facility: the bed, terrace, chandelier, pool, lobby,

spa, and other amenities.

As Table 3 shows, different data types are com-

municated on the two microblog sites. It is notice-

able that links and tags appears more on Twitter, and

photos appear more on Sina Weibo in a comparable

Table 2

Content Categories From Twitter and Sina Weibo

Type of Content Description Noted Content Examples

Advertising Post introduces facility, food,

or service to users.

Yes, that’s your own private diving platform at #Novotel Inle

#Myanmar (Instagram: @accor) #ThisIsAccor

Sales promotion Post provides discount

information.

We’re giving away free room nights & cash prizes all month to

deserving moms. MOMinate one today! http://staybw.co/YTGH

Company images/user

images/product and

service images

Post includes some images

or videos about company,

product/service, or hotel

consumers.

#优悦分享#知行而停，大金球棒棒哒！

(This figure is a company image of InterContinental Hotels Group

in Hangzhou, China.)

Links, hashtags, and tags Post includes website links,

hashtags (# symbol), or tags

(@symbol).

#Djibouti #Palace @Kempinski is an oasis #luxury where you can

feel like a real sultan #hotel http://luxatic.com/djibouti-palace-

kempinski-premier-hotel-horn-africa/

Figure 1. Topics published by luxury hotels on Twitter and Sina Weibo.

http://staybw.co/YTGH
http://luxatic.com/djibouti-palace-kempinski-premier-hotel-horn-africa/
http://luxatic.com/djibouti-palace-kempinski-premier-hotel-horn-africa/
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142 WU ET AL.

proportion. The percentage of links that appeared

on hotels’ Twitter accounts was 62.3%; on Sina

Weibo accounts it was 31.6%. The percentage of

tags that appeared on Twitter accounts was 61.8%;

on Sina Weibo accounts it was 29.9%. Even though

the percentages of hashtags (Twitter = 63.5%,

Sina Weibo = 56.4%) are close, hashtags are still

used more on Twitter, with typically two or more

hashtags per tweet. Almost all of Sine Weibo mes-

sages (97.4 %) were accompanied with pictures.

The best social media marketing outcome for

luxury hotels is that they spark engaging interac-

tions with consumers, meaning they receive more

than 50 replies, favorites, retweets, and so on.

Figure 2 demonstrates that Twitter users engage

with the information hotels provide. The most

prevalent forms of this engagement are favorites

(96.0%) and retweets (94.1%). On Sina Weibo, the

percentage of “likes,” a way for users to express

interest in a post (similar to favorite), was 74.4%

and “comments,” which are similar to “replies,”

was 65%. Interestingly, Sine Weibo users are less

apt to forward or retweet the hotel brands’ posts.

A chi-square test of independence was utilized to

examine if advertising, sales promotion, company

image, product/service image, user’s image, links,

hashtags, and tags are equally used in two types of

microblogging platforms. There were significant

relationships between the type of microblogging

sites and five marketing communication strategies.

Advertising (χ 2  = 54.64, p < 0.001), sales promo-

tion (χ 2  = 79.94, p < 0.001), product/service image

Table 3

Data Types in Twitter and Sina Weibo Posts

Twitter Sina Weibo

Content Frequency Percent Frequency Percent

Links 265 62.3 37 31.6

Photos 341 79.9 114 97.4

Videos 7 1.6 2 1.7

Tags 264 61.8 35 29.9

Hashtags 271 63.5 62 56.4

Figure 2. Users’ responses to Twitter and Sina Weibo posts by hotel brands. Forwards/

Retweets: Sina Weibo 53%, Twitter 94.10%; Comments/Replies: Sina Weibo 65%, Twit-

ter 37.90%; Like/Favorite: Sina Weibo 74.40%, Twitter 96%.

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SINA WEIBO AND TWITTER USE BY LUXURY HOTELS 143

(χ 2  = 9.59, p < 0.01), links (χ

2  = 35.01, p < 0.001),

and tags (χ 2  = 37.78, p < 0.001) were significantly

different in their appearance on Twitter and Sina

Weibo. Sina Weibo was more likely to be used by

the international luxury hotel brands to communi-

cate advertising (40.2% vs. 11.0%), sales promo-

tions (30.8% vs. 4.0%), and product/service images

(93.2% vs. 81.3%). The same hotel brand chose

Twitter as the medium of marketing communica-

tion when sharing links (62.3% vs. 31.6%) and tags

(61.8% vs. 29.9%). Table 4 shows the results of

these chi-square tests.

Conclusion

Cultural difference is a critical component in

understanding what response actions will be taken

in a communication process. Previous studies have

shown that customers with different cultural back-

grounds may have different preferences on what is

important (DeFranco, Wortman, Lam, & Country-

man, 2005). In this study, data were collected and

analyzed to determine if the differences between

Twitter and Sina Weibo consumer markets justify

the use of distinct communication strategies. The

results contend that luxury hotels encode posts

differently on Twitter and Sina Weibo to motivate

both Americans and Chinese customers to engage

with their messages. On their Sina Weibo postings,

hotel brands seem to take a traditional approaches

of sales promotion and advertising with company/

service information. The nature of the communica-

tion is highly informational and one-way. On Twit-

ter, information is generally more conversational

than promotional, a type of engaging content that,

compared to more traditional advertising content,

is a highly effective way to enhance brand image.

Links, tags, and hashtags are more frequently

shared. The current study supports the finding that

luxury hotels use Twitter more frequently in the US

market to promote via word of mouth and customer

service. This takes into consideration the idea that

the people in China might not be comfortable with

offering personal feelings and opinions due to cul-

tural and government restriction of cyber space.

The other finding was intriguing: Although Twit-

ter posts a high percentage of company images, there

appears to be no statistically significant difference in

user images between the two platforms. Both Twitter

and Sina Weibo evidence a high presence of prod-

uct and service images. This finding suggests that

luxury hotels want to build their brand image using

both platforms (Berger & Milkman, 2012). Finally,

the biggest difference found between the two plat-

forms is how messages are encoded. Twitter posts

had a higher percentage of links and tags than Sina

Weibo. Apparently, luxury hotels did not decide to

join Twitter to increase sales; rather, they use it as a

word-of-mouth and story-sharing platform.

Other findings from the content analysis were that

hotels used these microblogging platforms to build

high-quality relationships with their customers,

and more than half of the posts on Twitter and Sina

Weibo used emotional appeals. In addition, public

events are becoming an important content focus for

luxury hotels on microblogging platforms.

Twitter and Sina Weibo are still increasing in

use by the hotel industry. The current study results

suggest that luxury hotels might underutilize the

potential of Sina Weibo as the data indicate that

87% (13 of 15) of the Sina Weibo accounts post

only once a day. The frequency of hotels’ posts

should be one important element of their strategies,

and hotel marketers should evolve with changing

consumer preferences and social media tools.

Limitations and Further Research

The data have a few drawbacks. The main draw-

back is that the sample period is short: March

23–29, 2015. Therefore, this study provides an

initial baseline to facilitate tracking the changing

role of microblogging in the hospitality industry.

Table 4

Result of Chi-Square Tests

Marketing

Communication Strategy χ 2

df p-Value

Advertising** 54.64 1 0.000

Sales promotion** 79.94 1 0.000

Company image 0.34 1 0.562

Product/service image* 9.59 1 0.002

User’s image 0.34 1 0.562

Links** 35.01 1 0.000

Tags** 37.78 1 0.000

Hashtags 1.94 1 0.164

*Statistically significant at the 0.01 level.

**Significant at the 0.001 level.

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144 WU ET AL.

Multiple raters were used to develop the coding

scheme, and a consensus model was used to reach

agreement on the classification of the posts, thus

strengthening the accuracy of our findings. Never-

theless, our results should be interpreted with cau-

tion given the short sample period. One important

limitation is that there were only 15 international

luxury hotel brands that have both Twitter and Sina

Weibo accounts; future research should perhaps be

extended to include other hotel segments or com-

pare different hotel segments. With a larger data-

set, marketers can identify audience’s needs and

responses to the marketing messages. For example,

a large data analysis can provide dynamic views of

brand images using visualization technique.

A further understanding of the usage of Twitter

and Sina Weibo should investigate the platform

users and should interview the hotel social media

managers. In addition, the content analyzed was

limited to Twitter and Sina Weibo posts; in order to

understand how the social media marketing evolves,

newer social media platforms need to be consid-

ered, such as Instagram and Google Plus. Addition-

ally, more complex models could be developed.

This will certainly benefit hotel managers or man-

agers in other industries that utilize social media to

connect with their target market.

Implications

These conclusions are significant for both

researchers and hospitality managers. Hospitality

managers are aware of social media, but they have

not fully recognized the power of microblogging

in influencing both business and leisure tourists’

behaviors. Twitter and Sina Weibo offer real-time

information powered by people all around the

world. Many travelers turn to information found

on microblogs, which shapes their ever-changing

expectations. Findings suggest that hospitality

managers should appoint a person to be specifi-

cally responsible for monitoring the online brand

reputation and replying to comments that tour-

ists post online. Brand managers need to have a

stake in consumers’ highly involved decision of

finding accommodations in the digital environ-

ment. By addressing the needs and motivations of

Twitter and Weibo users, the hospitality industry

can reach broader audiences with more narrowly

targeted messages, and thus help achieve micro-

blogging profitability. Managers need to consider

microblogging strategies, so they can more easily

increase consumer attention. Offering additional

discounts on Weibo can help improve the likeli-

hood that Chinese consumers will develop positive

attitudes toward the brand. In addition, increased

use of images and hashtags can improve consumer

attitude toward the brand for American consumers.

This study also contributes to the research field of

tourism online representation, providing evidence

to the importance of online conversations shaped

in a microblogging platform. The microblogging

platform Sina Weibo has become a particularly

effective tool for reaching the mainland Chinese

population. This study contributes to a theoretical

understanding of the success factors for microblog-

ging and how these factors influence consumers in

China and the US. We identified the correlations

between marketing (advertising and sales promo-

tions), pictorial posts (images), and other elements

(links, tags, and hashtags).

References

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