DIGITAL MARKETING FOR HOSPITALITY - 2025/6

Module Overview

This module provides students with an understanding of the importance and the application of digital marketing in the hospitality industry. It involves a critical reflection on contemporary strategies, concepts and ideas that currently shape marketing practices from a demand as well as a supply side perspectives. The module deals with the impact of digital media on consumer behaviour and how firms can exploit digital means and platforms for marketing efforts. The module also deals with factors that facilitate, or on the contrary, inhibit the usage of various digital marketing channels in the hospitality industry. Students will engage in critical reflection from discussions grounded in research findings and global industry examples from hospitality organisations and related sectors.

Module provider

Surrey Hospitality & Tourism Management

Module Leader

SIRIPIS Maltika (Hosp & Tour)

Number of Credits: 15

ECTS Credits: 7.5

Framework: FHEQ Level 7

Module cap (Maximum number of students): N/A

Module Availability

Semester 1

Prerequisites / Co-requisites

None

Module content

Indicative content includes:

• Digital marketing fundamentals: digital micro- and macro-environments


• Digital marketing strategy


• Digital media and the marketing mix


• Relationship marketing using digital platforms
  
  
  
  • CRM technologies
  
  
  • Big data and artificial intelligence for marketing
  
  
  
  


• Delivering the digital customer experience
  
  
  
  • Website and Mobile App
  
  
  • IoT, VR, AR, and MR for marketing
  
  
  
  


• Campaign planning for digital media
  
  
  
  • Goal setting
  
  
  • Segmentation and targeting
  
  
  • Offer and message development
  
  
  • Media selection and planning
  
  
  
  


• Marketing communications using digital media channels
  
  
  
  • Search engine optimisation
  
  
  • Online public relations and influencer marketing
  
  
  • Online partnership and affiliate marketing
  
  
  • Digital advertising
  
  
  • Email and mobile messaging
  
  
  • Social media marketing
  
  
  • Recommender systems, conversational agents, chatbots
  
  
  • Loyalty programmes
  
  
  • Online distribution channels
  
  
  
  


• Evaluation of digital marketing performance
  
  
  
  • Performance management
  
  
  • Content management
  
  
  
  


• Ethics of data usage in marketing

Assessment pattern

Alternative Assessment

N/A

Assessment Strategy

The assessment strategy is designed to enable students to demonstrate that they gradually build up their knowledge and understanding of digital marketing, and gain hands-on experience in evaluating, developing and running digital marketing campaigns in a hospitality context. Students will be required to demonstrate that they have relevant theoretical knowledge, analytical and diagnostic tools, and practical skills to critically evaluate existing digital marketing initiatives, design a new digital marketing campaign from scratch, implement it and assess the performance.

Thus, the summative assessment for this module consists of:

• 2 Individual digital marketing critiques 

Students will be required to select two existing digital marketing examples in hospitality industry (can be a campaign or any forms of digital marketing initiatives), and critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the selected examples using theoretical knowledge learnt from class. Students will be asked to submit the first critique in a blog entry, and the second critiue in a vlog entry (i.e., video blog).  

Students will be requested to select two different types of digital marketing examples (e.g. CRM activity, video advertisement, social media campaign, or email marketing), and carefully consider the unique characteristics of the selected type of digital marketing and digital channel used. Creative critique methods such as benchmarking with competitors, text mining and content analysis on customer comments, are encouraged in this assignment.

• Individual digital marketing campaign 

Students will be required to produce a report on a detailed plan of developing a new digital marketing campaign for a selected hospitality organization. Students will need to draw on the latest academic research and industry trends to demonstrate the relevance of their proposed plan.

Formative assessment and feedback

• During the first online activity, the assignments and the feedback process is explained.


• Feedback is also provided during and after online discussions/guided activities. Students will be required to contribute to moderated discussion forums and seminars to demonstrate the development of their knowledge and mastery of the academic research as well as demonstrate awareness of current industry trends.


• As the online activities are built around topic-specific exercises in a group setting, students will not only benefit from lecturer feedback but also receive peer evaluations.


• Once marking is completed, students are provided with feedback, which contains detailed generic feedback as well as a breakdown of marks. This enables students to assess their own performance compared to their peers.

Feedback 

Once marking is completed, students are provided with feedback, which contains detailed and generic feedback as well as a breakdown of marks. This enables students to assess their own performance compared to their peers.

Module aims

• This module aims to introduce, discuss, and analyse various topics including key digital marketing concepts, digital marketing ethics and digital media analytics that are fundamental for digital marketing in hospitality. This module will help students to develop a critical understanding of the role and importance of digital marketing in creating value propositions for customers and competitive advantages for hospitality businesses, as well as the influence of digital marketing on consumer behavior. It will enable students to critically evaluate hospitality businesses' existing digital marketing strategies, and equip students with skills to develop relevant and effective digital marketing strategies in hospitality industry, and to reflect on key issues related to digital transformation in a rapidly changing world.

Learning outcomes

Methods of Teaching / Learning

The learning and teaching strategy is designed to provide students with an overview of the theories covering the key areas of digital marketing in the hospitality industry. This theoretical overview will be supplemented with providing students with practical project, and continuous improvement methods so that they can critically evaluate, develop, implement and assess the performance of various digital marketing initiatives.

The learning and teaching methods include:

• theoretical lectures with supporting materials from a range of perspectives within digital marketing in hospitality to provide students with a holistic framework of knowledge


• online exercises, practical examples, and topical case studies to critically discuss and apply theoretical knowledge to contemporary industry practices


• an assignment in which students select and critically evaluate three existing hospitality businesses¿ digital marketing initiatives


• a project in which students select a hospitality organization and develop a digital marketing campaign for it, and a plan on how to evaluate the digital marketing performance


• supporting guest lecture sessions


• formative feedback sessions

 

Indicated Lecture Hours (which may also include seminars, tutorials, workshops and other contact time) are approximate and may include in-class tests where one or more of these are an assessment on the module. In-class tests are scheduled/organised separately to taught content and will be published on to student personal timetables, where they apply to taken modules, as soon as they are finalised by central administration. This will usually be after the initial publication of the teaching timetable for the relevant semester.

Reading list

https://readinglists.surrey.ac.uk
Upon accessing the reading list, please search for the module using the module code: MANM499

Other information

This module adopts the University curriculum framework, which aims to develop learners with strong capabilities in Digital Capabilities, Employability, Global and Cultural Capabilities, Sustainability, and Resourcefulness and Resilience. This module contributes to the development of the following capabilities: 

Digital Capabilities: This module focuses on developing students’ capabilities in digital marketing. They will learn how to critically evaluatehospitality businesses’ existing digital marketing strategies, and how to develop effective digital marketing strategies in hospitality industry. They will learn how to use various digital tools and media platforms to develop, implement, monitor and manage digital marketing strategies.

Employability: The assessments in this module help students to gain knowledge and skills about how to evaluate and develop digital marketing strategies, i.e. how to apply digital marketing knowledge and skills in real business environment and facilitate business decision-making. This will increase students' employability when they work in the industry.   

Global and Cultural Capabilities: Students will learn how to identify important key issues related to digital marketing, and these issues can be related to consumer behaviours, consumer decision- making, and consumer background characteristics, which would be affected by differences in culture and geographic locations. Students need to pay attention to the contexts of the digital marketing strategy, and strive to understand the influences of sectoral, national, regional and cultural differences on the digital marketing strategies and tactics. 

Sustainability: Students will learn how to reflect on how to do digital marketing to promote sustainability in the hospitality industry. 

Resourcefulness and Resilience: Students will be required to develop an effective digital marketing strategy for a selected hospitality organisation. They will be required to use a range of sources to identify and justify digital marketing objectives, target audience, the choice of channels, message and tactics in the marketing message, as well as measures to manage and monitor the digital marketing performance.  Students will need to draw on the latest academic research and industry trends to demonstrate the relevance of their proposed digital marketing plan. Finding solutions during the digital marketing development process is the key learning aspect of this module that will develop students’ resourcefulness and resilience.   

Please note that the information detailed within this record is accurate at the time of publishing and may be subject to change. This record contains information for the most up to date version of the programme / module for the 2025/6 academic year.