Branka Petronijević, Marketing Director, Crowne Plaza

Innovation and good ideas are an integral part of our operation and essential to our interaction with guests. We do everything with passion, good energy, new and innovative ideas in order to be as successful as possible.

Crowne Plaza is part of the largest hotel corporation in the world. How much can you rely on this, and how much you need to be original and innovative?

– In the InterContinental Corporation, there are more than 5,500 hotels. To work equally well in Asia, America or Europe, to respect all the specifics of the region and to retain all the set standards, we have to establish, develop and maintain a strong brand strategy.

We have an important group of experts working at the InterContinental UK base in Denham, near London. They provide support to all of us who are involved in hotel marketing under our brand. It is a great and important thing to have such marketing support, and it is essential that our relationship with clients is good, that’s why we take care of it.

Do hotels like yours need additional advertising? A recommendation by a satisfied guest is no longer enough?

– A guest recommendation has always been and will always remain the basis for all hoteliers to assert the quality of their service. Whoever seriously engages in hotel management knows that the reputation you get on portals where guests rate quality of service is very important. It is not easy to influence such a reputation, except through the service you provide.

Crowne Plaza is a hotel that has the highest service ratings precisely thanks to the reviews of satisfied guests and their sharing opinions and recommendations on the official websites that deal with it. We could calmly rely on this, and not engage in additional advertising, but with such a serious brand, advertising is not just an end in itself. Our priority and our commitment is quality communication with clients and presenting new content and services that the hotel offers.

It is not possible to work and be successful in an industry such as marketing, and not be original and innovative. This is an important part of an ideal whole for the Crowne Plaza Hotel

Do you connect your future to further development of communication through digital channels?

– We should not talk about digital media as something in the future. They are our present and should be discussed in real time in the most positive way. Fantastic instruments are available to us in the world of digital media.

There are no limits to this field. The communication thread has its longest reach thanks to digital, and this leaves anyone in this business breathless. You can send information, an announcement, an advertisement or a position, and you know that you will immediately get to those you targeted and further, and that is priceless. There are no more restrictions like other forms of communication, whether we are talking about print or TV or dealing with their financial aspects. Digital media and channels have bridged these barriers and have made this sphere of work really limitless, but it is important that conventional channels of communication survive because they are necessary, each in its own way.

We at Crowne Plaza have embraced this trend in the hotel pre-opening phase, continued with it and improved it. We are absolute leaders in social networks. Our family of followers is numerous and organically acquired, and the monthly reach is large. With our followers, we are true friends. We communicate, and that means a lot to us.