CampaignTV: The Peninsula's Jean Forrest on building a travel brand

In this interview sponsored by BBC Travel, Jean Forrest, general manager for marketing at The Peninsula, comments on how the hotel brand's marketing strategy has changed following the financial crisis, the biggest change in the industry, marketing objectives going forward and the company's social media strategy.

According to Forrest, The Peninsula really focussed on the China market as the North American business was the hardest hit during the crisis. She adds that business has come back, perhaps not to the levels of 2007 but definitely a great increase over the past year. She adds that China is coming up to be their number one market and continues to develop as the Chinese population becomes more affluent.

Speaking of how the hotel's marketing strategy has changed in response, Forrest said, "Everybody was looking for some kind of deal and I think that we were able to do that in an elegant way without deep discounting and people really understood the value of Peninsula - and going forward that’s also what we will continue to do during certain periods."

She reckons the biggest change in the industry has been a shift in focus to niche markets and "really deciding where the business needs to come from."

Going foward, Forrest says they are looking to broaden online as a marketing channel, in particular search engine marketing and optimisation. She adds the hotel is looking into appointing e-commerce managers to manage and monitor all e-media and social networking.

Catch the next three parts in the series over the next four weeks here on Campaignasia.com. We talk to marketing leaders from the Hitlon Hotel, Tourism Australia and Singapore Airlines.

BBC.com launched its new travel site BBC.com/travel, in partnership with its sister company Lonely Planet.

"Our audience already loves the smart, sophisticated and well researched stories from the BBC. BBC Travel builds on our news and documentary heritage with outstanding travel journalism including Lonely Planet's rich stable of authors to inspire you to leave your desk and have an adventure whatever the destination," said Allan.

Visit www.bbc.com/travel.