Shutters on the Beach
Independently owned and operated by the Edward Thomas Collection, Shutters on the Beach is a luxury hotel that is conveniently located within 20 minutes of the Los Angeles Airport, Beverly Hills and Hollywood. Shutters is also within walking distance of the quintessential oceanside Santa Monica Pier.
Gregory Day, a 20 year hospitality veteran, has been the general manager of the Santa Monica hotel since 2008. Prior to joining Shutters on the Beach, Day worked with Fairmont Hotels for 13 years. Prior to Fairmont, Day worked in the food and beverage division of Pebble Beach Resorts in Pebble Beach, California.
In many ways, Day is on the bleeding-edge of his industry. When many GMs were lusting after the iPad for personal use, Day provided them in premiere suite rooms, free of charge. When many hotels were just starting to think about online review sites, he had a full time employee focused exclusively on social media. He explains, “I always felt it was extremely important to understand how the public perceives our hotel. Market perception is critical in this business.”
To that end, Lindsey Richmond, an online marketing assistant, would manually gather reviews and mentions from review sites, OTAs, Twitter and blogs. Every other day she would email the reviews to a team of managers. The process was time consuming and the roll-up didn’t provide historical data to show whether their efforts in social media were paying off.
A mutual friend introduced Day to the Revinate founders, who were putting the finishing touches on their software solution for the hotel industry. They shared an early beta with Day, who immediately saw the value in a dashboard for managing social media. Day recalls, “It was a no-brainer for me to use Revinate. As a GM, I need to know how my hotel is performing and what our guests think about our service, amenities and prices. By providing a dashboard that aggregates data from many sources, Revinate makes my job much easier.”
Lindsey Richmond’s job also got much easier. Because she no longer has to spend hours searching for reviews, she can now focus on social media outreach and driving revenue from new sources. Shutters’ Twitter account, @ShuttersSecrets, has more than 1600 followers who stay engaged with regular tweets, special offers, giveaways and insight into great things to do around the resort.
Revinate has quickly become part of daily business at Shutters On The Beach, in addition to the other two properties in the Edward Thomas Collection, Casa del Mar and Canary Hotel. All managers log in daily to check out reviews and see how the resort is faring online. In addition, Revinate’s “Social Media Scorecard” is often used at management team meetings to gauge market perception and address operational issues that have surfaced via online feedback. The bleeding edge never seemed so practical.
Gregory Day, a 20 year hospitality veteran, has been the general manager of the Santa Monica hotel since 2008. Prior to joining Shutters on the Beach, Day worked with Fairmont Hotels for 13 years. Prior to Fairmont, Day worked in the food and beverage division of Pebble Beach Resorts in Pebble Beach, California.
In many ways, Day is on the bleeding-edge of his industry. When many GMs were lusting after the iPad for personal use, Day provided them in premiere suite rooms, free of charge. When many hotels were just starting to think about online review sites, he had a full time employee focused exclusively on social media. He explains, “I always felt it was extremely important to understand how the public perceives our hotel. Market perception is critical in this business.”
To that end, Lindsey Richmond, an online marketing assistant, would manually gather reviews and mentions from review sites, OTAs, Twitter and blogs. Every other day she would email the reviews to a team of managers. The process was time consuming and the roll-up didn’t provide historical data to show whether their efforts in social media were paying off.
A mutual friend introduced Day to the Revinate founders, who were putting the finishing touches on their software solution for the hotel industry. They shared an early beta with Day, who immediately saw the value in a dashboard for managing social media. Day recalls, “It was a no-brainer for me to use Revinate. As a GM, I need to know how my hotel is performing and what our guests think about our service, amenities and prices. By providing a dashboard that aggregates data from many sources, Revinate makes my job much easier.”
Lindsey Richmond’s job also got much easier. Because she no longer has to spend hours searching for reviews, she can now focus on social media outreach and driving revenue from new sources. Shutters’ Twitter account, @ShuttersSecrets, has more than 1600 followers who stay engaged with regular tweets, special offers, giveaways and insight into great things to do around the resort.
Revinate has quickly become part of daily business at Shutters On The Beach, in addition to the other two properties in the Edward Thomas Collection, Casa del Mar and Canary Hotel. All managers log in daily to check out reviews and see how the resort is faring online. In addition, Revinate’s “Social Media Scorecard” is often used at management team meetings to gauge market perception and address operational issues that have surfaced via online feedback. The bleeding edge never seemed so practical.