In July 2022, global hospitality company Hilton, backed by consumer insights, launched global campaign ‘ Hilton. For The Stay ’, highlighting the importance of ‘The Stay’ as a crucial element for any trip. Earlier this year, it launched an extension to Hilton’s first global marketing platform, ‘Hilton. For The Stay,’ in India. The hotel chain has also partnered with actor Deepika Padukone as a global ambassador to shine the spotlight on Hilton’s offerings and hospitality. The campaign was first rolled out-of-home (OOH) with presence across three key metros, airports and digital hoarding across the city. In addition, Print was also utilized.
Manish Tolani, Vice President & Commercial Director, South Asia, Hilton, says, “We're doing this for the resonance of the Indian consumer with the brand. Today, Indians are present across the world and they're leveraging and resonating with a brand at a much larger level than just the domestic audience within the country. Data points tell you a story. While we saw a significant amount of engagement the moment we announced a partnership with Deepika Padukone. This wasn't all from India but from the US, UK and other countries where Indians are present. We were so micro-focused towards uplifting the sentiment in India that we didn't realize the ripple effect it caused in the global touchpoints as well.”
In addition to Deepika Padukone, Hilton also collaborated with actor Siddharth Malhotra for ‘It Matters Where You Stay’ campaign for its Hilton and Conrad Hotels & Resorts brand. Tolani says, “We don't want this to be just a tagline, we want our customers to understand and connect with the statement. The reality is that as a hotel brand, we can't control the facets which are not under us. However, when you walk into the lobby of any Hilton hotel around the world, we can control the experience that you have. That's exactly what we are trying to communicate to the domestic audience through Siddharth Malhotra.”
Another initiative launched in 2021 was ‘Wedding Diaries by Hilton,’ highlighting Hilton’s offerings and services to curate bespoke weddings. As per reports, it is estimated that India's wedding industry is estimated to be worth $130 billion - the second largest in the world. Globally the wedding industry is growing 15% CAGR, reflecting the potential of the industry. Even during the pandemic, weddings as a segment remained resilient; albeit on a smaller and intimate scale in a safe environment, i.e. a branded hotel. Depending on the hotel brand chosen from Hilton’s wide portfolio, Wedding Diaries showcase the experience each hotel can provide. According to Tolani,
“Though Wedding Diaries was focused on India. Hilton hotels from around the world, particularly Middle East and Europe, took note on how we could work together to take the Wedding Diaries platform outside India. Great content was created around this concept. We saw a phenomenal amount of engagement with audiences and different platforms of weddings.”
In 2024, research was conducted on what the consumer was looking for post Covid-19 when it comes to taking wedding decisions. The focus was on the key decision makers – the couple and their parents – on how the brand could be solution provider and what could tilt their decision towards a brand. A key pillar that emerged after research – of almost nine months – was “to take away our stress.” To address this key issue, Hilton assigned one person as point of contact from the time the wedding party checked in to check out. Tolani says, “We curated the ‘Wedding Ambassador’ as the person who is in contact with the family for anything needed during the wedding at our hotels. We've been getting great feedback since its launch. Now, we have people come in and ask for the ‘Wedding Ambassador’. At the end of the day, the emotional connection and stress has to be addressed. Our ‘Wedding Ambassador’ provides that solution.”
Looking at Hilton’s media mix, while Digital is the most important medium, OOH also plays an important role. He says, “Digital remains relevant as that's where our research and data points come from When a business or a leisure customer travel, we see what are the different media points that they get influenced by. Research showed us that smart electronic content hoardings in and around airports is a great medium. At airports, people are on their phone or when they have a cup of coffee, they look around. It's a reminder for them to stay connected to a certain brand.” He continues, “When it comes to weddings, people don’t associate a hotel brand with it. Now they are starting to engage and talk to us. We found that relevance in terms of content and data points. Hence, we took our messaging in the beginning of the year to OOH. On the other hand, ‘Wedding Diaries by Hilton is only on YouTube because we realize the consumer that we're going after is there or is indirectly connected and will run into your content in an organic manner.” Depending on the messaging, Hilton has also experimented with music platforms such as Spotify. Tolani claims that Hilton is the first international hotel company to officially launch a WhatsApp channel. He says, “WhatsApp is a phenomenal media platform for us to reach out to our consumers. We know the opening rate of a WhatsApp message is almost 94%, as against email at 4%. We continue to try and experiment. The data points give us a story; we take our content, figure out our target audience, then look at the messaging that we're going with, and then go after the right kind of medium of that.”
Globally, Hilton is an umbrella brand for almost 24 brands within its enterprise brand. In India, Hilton is now looking beyond the metros and Tier I and Tier II cities to Tier III, Tier IV, and Tier V markets. Tolani says, “We have a very opportunistic outlook towards how we're going to launch our hotels and brands in India because. We see an opportunity across Tier III, Tier IV, and Tier V markets. We see a market there as consumers already exist there.
Currently, Hilton has 26 trading hotels in India. By 2027, Hilton is looking to have nearly 100 trading hotels and in the pipeline with growth both organically and inorganically. The driving force has been the change in holiday trends that reflect how Indians are now travelling. While earlier upper middle class and middle-class families would take two trips in a year – one domestic and one international – this has now doubled. Another change has been in the definition of a business traveler. Earlier, a business traveler was defined as a person who to the top five metros; today a business traveler goes to more than nine cities or more consistently. Another segment driving growth is the MICE – Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions, as per Tolani, earlier the demand was low while supply was high. Today this trend has been reversed. Another trend that Tolani says is that the seasonality in India will no longer be there because there will be a consistent demand pattern, at least in business cities, followed by some leisure cities. This year, Hilton has seen substantial growth across all segments quarter-on-quarter. He states, “As an industry, we have stopped depending on one certain segment of growth only which used to be the trend in the past.”
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