Exploration of 3 W’s of Web Marketing in the Hotel Sector – A Study Conducted at the Casa da Calçada Hotel

Hotels should implement new digital strategies, to become more competitive and guarantee confidence and security for their guests. In a more technological world, it is possible for hotels to gain a competitive advantage through digital and internet marketing strategies to capture potential customers. The purpose of this study is to explore the importance of webmarketing strategies in the hotel sector, namely, webdesign, webpromotion and webperfomance, using the Casa da Calcada hotel, as a case study. For this, three objectives were defined: i) to analyze the current digital marketing strategy; ii) to identify the most effective tools in the Web Marketing strategy and iii) to explore web marketing opportunities to improve the hotel’s performance on the internet. To achieve these objectives, various data collection methods were used, such as semi-structed interviews and netnography. Also, an analysis of the digital marketing strategies implemented by the hotel was carried out. Results show that the global classification achieved was 60%. Of the five categories analyzed, the criteria’s usability and promotion presented the best rating, followed by customer relationship and point of sale and price and product. At the end, limitations are identified and theoretical and practical recommendations in the hotel sector are presented, also future research is pinpointed.