November 7, 2010— NEW YORK—The 2010 IDeaS Client Summit held here during the summer attracted more than 90 people representing 29 global hotel companies and used some of the latest technology to poll the attendees about a wide range of subjects.

IDeaS provided HOTEL BUSINESS an exclusive look at the results from the biggest of these surveys, done at the end of the event.

One of the more interesting statistics was on social networking in general, and data collection and use. Most of the respondents, 87%, said that their hotel or brand was active on social networking sites. Of that group, more than 60% are on 2-3 sites, with Facebook and Twitter being the top sites.

According to Natalie Osborn, director of service development at IDeaS, a discussion around social networking sprung up at an earlier session, and carried over to the larger, full-group setting. Questions about what to do with a social network and how to make it profitable were high on the list.

"One of the things I got out of the questions is who should be responsible for social media analytics," said Osborn. "[Attendees] resoundingly think of it as a marketing function." In fact, 75% of respondents believe managing the social network and resulting data is a marketing function over revenue management or sales.

Osborn noted that the advent of direct booking engines that allow guests to book directly from sites such as Facebook has been a positive. Hotels now have more direct feedback as to what is working, and what isn't, since they can track where those leads are coming from.

And tracking is a big issue. Osborn believes tracking these analytics is probably going to be one of the next major industry trends. "One of the few things left as a differentiator [in a down economy] is analytics," she noted, saying that all hotels these days have Websites, and most have social network presences. But knowing what makes the property different and acting on it is what will set successful properties apart, she said. "How to leverage what makes you different is down to analytics," said noted.

She went on to note that one of the biggest challenges in using analytics to track and improve every aspect of the business, from the guest experience to the online reputation, is data. "One of the biggest challenges is system integrations," she said. "Hotels have to make sure the systems talk together in an advantageous way. To get better analytics, you need better data. Systems have to talk together, or it's going to be a problem in the future."

This isn't a new concept, she noted, and there are solutions out there.

In fact, she believes most, if not all, of the big chains today either have integrated systems, or are working on creating them.

And smaller chains and independent properties, for the most part, start out demanding everything tie together. But taking all of that information and turning it into useable statistics is the part of the puzzle all properties, large or small, will have to tackle.