The aim of this paper is to analyse the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on the accommodation sector by looking at the measures in place, prospects and future strategies. The findings of the study serve as a springboard for future research and applications in the field of marketing mix, in order to build strong foundations of the brand physically as well as virtually in the mind of customers. The present study reviews and explains the liaison between social media/consumer generated media and IMC through enhanced IMC outcomes in the modern-day marketing communication approach. The study developed a theoretical framework through systematic review in the context that serve to integrate the existing conceptual framework of IMC with social media (SM) that is also called consumer generated media (CGM) and offer implications for understanding the manifestation as a tool of augmentation for marketing practice.
Moreover, the study highlights the importance of social media, as how it can influence consumer behavior in a substantial way. This research aimed to track the evolution and advancement of the IMC concept, and how it reformed the way of marketing communications. The increased usage of social media forced the brands to integrate social media in their marketing communication channel, as it becomes the need of the hour, as it determines overall brand identity, brand image, and company performance in the present marketing competition. The study also indicated that different social media sites demonstrate the same marketing effectiveness, suggesting that hotel managers use the same marketing tactics for Facebook and Twitter marketing. The results revealed that hotel customers' social media experiences influence their attitudes-toward-social-media-site, which in turn influences their attitudes-toward-hotel-brand, and that hotel customers' attitudes-toward-hotel-brand affects their hotel booking intentions and, in turn, intentions to spread electronic word of mouth. Based on the data collected from an online survey, the goodness of fit of the model implied that the Aad model provides an appropriate theoretical framework to explain the marketing effectiveness of social media in the hotel industry. Integrating the attitude-toward-the-ad (Aad) model with the concepts of attitude-toward-social-media-page, the study proposed a theoretical model of hotel social media marketing effectiveness. This study attempted to explore the marketing effectiveness of two different social media sites (Facebook and Twitter) in the hotel industry. The unprecedented popularity of social media outlets have forced scholars to inquire about their marketing effectiveness, especially in the hotel industry.