Abacus, Asia’s leading provider for travel solutions and services, is pleased to announce it has formed a strategic partnership with Circos Brand Karma, the leading brand analytics and management company for the hospitality industry. Under the partnership, Brand Karma will integrate real time Abacus Hotel bookings data with brand insight information culled from social media tools to provide an up-to-date analysis on sentiment, influencers and hotel performance. 

Leveraging the Brand Karma tool, Abacus’ top hotel customers will have access to deep analysis and interpretations of online conversation about their properties gathered from social media channels in multiple languages integrated with live Abacus booking data.  The insights deliver actionable results that hotels can use to develop social media into a profitable distribution, service, and marketing channel.

This announcement is made in conjunction with the start of the International Hotel Investment Forum (IHIF) Asia Pacific 2010 where 350 industry leaders gather to discuss the latest developments, trends and best practices in the hotel industry and the investment field. Speaking at IHI  with Morris Sim, Co-founder and CEO of Circos Brand Karma, Mr Brett Henry, Vice President Marketing, Abacus International commented on the competitive edge that Abacus’ partnership with Circos Brand Karma will lend to their hotel customers. “Social media tools and the number of its users have grown over the last three years. We recognise there is an invaluable amount of information in the social media landscape to be mined and leveraged in a structured way. Manual monitoring isn’t practical, sophisticated tools are needed and Circos Brand Karma is the clear leader in this area. We are adding value to our hotel customers’ businesses by harnessing the benefits and relevancy of these new media tools.”

“With Brand Karma’s series of reports, hotel properties will be able to assess their strongest and weakest product attributes across varied customer segments as well as their closest competitors’ set. The feedback gathered will also show our hotel customers how to effectively communicate their brands’ strengths in the social media space.”

With 400 million active members[1] using social media tools like Facebook, and Twitter reaching 75 million globally, there is certainly a captive pool of online consumers that marketers are keen to engage.

Morris Sim said, “Social media is the best channel for hotel brands to listen to their guests, analyse how they are being perceived, understand their brand strengths, weaknesses and differentiators, and use this information to make critical business decisions that will ultimately impact their profitability. The Abacus and Circos partnership is a milestone in that we are the first to offer a view of this data set integrated with real time transactional data.”

“Using Brand Karma, hotels can use what they learn about their brands to better reach and serve their most profitable customers. We're happy to be helping this leading group of Abacus hotels to protect the value and cultivate the potential of their brands, which will lead to increased top-line sales and better margins,” continued Mr Sim.