The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company unwraps a fully-integrated social media campaign at Arabian Travel Market 2013

The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, LLC is leading the way in consumer engagement in the digital sphere at this year’s Arabian Travel Market, May 6-9, 2013 with a fully-integrated social media campaign that will offer visitors a unique interactive experience.

Through the @RitzCarlton Twitter handle, the team will provide live content and updates from the event in Dubai. With a sizeable number of The Ritz-Carlton Twitter followers comprising of trade partners, customers and the media, it is a perfect platform to initiate and build brand conversation relevant to the fair.

The introduction of a dedicated ‘Tweet Bar’ on The Ritz-Carlton stand HC5240 located in the Arena Hall, will give the brand’s global Twitter following access to news from the event as it unfolds including highlights from exclusive talks and seminars.

In addition, visitors checking in at ATM on Foursquare will receive tips on the best things to see and do in Dubai, as recommended by The Ritz-Carlton concierges from both hotels in the city. The Ritz-Carlton also uses Foursquare and The Ritz-Carlton Mobile App to tailor local content and provide engaging information relevant to their guests. This will be brought to life at ATM where a series of QR codes can be used to download property insights, including recipes from chefs and guided tours of hotels.

“Our social media interactions at Arabian Travel Market are a natural extension of our ‘Let Us Stay With You’ brand philosophy. We want to enrich the experience at the show for visitors, in addition to being a great luxury travel information resource for our Twitter followers by providing news as it is happening from the show,” said Chris Gabaldon, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer for The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. “Each of The Ritz-Carlton social media channels grow in importance to us year-over-year as our guests live more and more of their lives in the digital space. Use of Facebook alone already stands at 40% of time spent online in the UAE, 30% in Kuwait and 21% in Saudi Arabia making Facebook an increasingly important channel for us to converse with our Middle East guests.”

The effectiveness of The Ritz-Carlton social media direction and content has led to significant year-on-year increases across all leading platforms, including Facebook which has jumped 118 percent to more than one million fans across the company’s brand page and 48 hotel Facebook pages. In addition, the brand Facebook Page’s year-over-year growth in “People Talking About This” went up 746%.

To follow news from The Ritz-Carlton stand during Arabian Travel Market, follow the tweets from @RitzCarlton or the hashtag #ATMDubai.