To find out more about Marriott’s content marketing strategy, HOTELS spoke with Karen Olivares, director, brand marketing, Marriott Hotels.

　　In 2013 Marriott Hotels entered into a unique “content marketing” partnership with the magazines Fast Company, Wired and news website Mashable.

　　Marriott International, Bethesda, Maryland, says the content marketing is meant to reach the next generation traveler with articles that cover travel topics and include links to Marriott Hotels’ Travel-Brilliantly.com website, where visitors are invited to share their ideas to improve the modern travel experience. To find out more about Marriott’s content marketing strategy, HOTELS spoke with Karen Olivares, director, brand marketing, Marriott Hotels.

　　HOTELS: Who is the target audience of content marketing and why are they worth targeting in this manner?

　　Karen Olivares: We are looking to reach the next generation traveler with compelling content that is relevant to their lifestyle. The three publications we chose offer broad reach from a purely quantitative perspective, but also an audience that overlaps nicely with our own target.

　　HOTELS: What is Marriott trying to communicate with its content marketing?

　　Olivares: Marriott Hotels is on a transformational journey, introducing innovations for our guests, such as mobile check-in, Workspace on Demand and Meetings Imagined, and testing new innovations in our innovation lab, such as a revolutionary new guest room. Working with content partners provides interesting angles and stories that feed into our own innovations and thoughts on the future of travel. Contributors often point out the challenges of the business traveler as Marriott works to provide solutions. Rather than communicating through our content partners, we see them as adding and amplifying our message and vision.

　　HOTELS: How does Travel Brilliantly coincide with the content marketing?

　　Olivares: Not only did the bloggers find valuable material and inspiration to write about in the hundreds of submissions received in the site but their own readers and followers were inclined to participate with ideas of their own. We learned that the most engaged visitors to Travel-Brilliantly.com were in fact those coming from our content partners. We believe that these partnerships were truly synergistic in terms of content, traffic and value creation.

　　HOTELS: Do the articles include links for direct booking?

　　Olivares: All the articles include links to Travel-Brilliantly.com, which in turn, includes an accessible booking module. Bookings are the ultimate goal of any initiative, however, we see content marketing being further up the purchase decision funnel. Before a guest is ready to book, they need to enter the realm of consideration; this is where we see the value of content marketing. The articles and blogs in our partners’ digital publications provide relevant information to our target customers, who may choose to delve deeper with our content by engaging with Travel-Brilliantly.com

　　HOTELS: Are the articles written in-house or is outside assistance used?

　　Olivares: As partners in these relationships, the content is created in collaboration. Bloggers and contributors are sourced by our partners and are jointly briefed by Marriott Hotels and the publications. Success is dependent on the quality of the content so we go through great lengths to ensure that the content is “real” and not promotional or self-serving. That would defeat the purpose.