Impact Of COVID-19 On The Social Media Marketing Campaigns By Stand-Alone Fine-Dine Restaurants In Pune City.

Abstract

The social media is one of the new marketing tools for the hospitality industry of which stand-alone fine dine restaurants is a part. This tool has been explored in many other industries but for hospitality industry, this is relevantly underutilised tool of marketing. This tool has helped stand-alone restaurants with marketing efforts during the times of COVID pandemic. Marketing strategies when carried on social media are built around different aspects of the restaurants like menu, facilities, customer reviews, food bloggers/ critic’s reviews, offer, photos, etc. This paper tries to find out the impact of COVID-19 of these different aspects and it also will focus on any new components if any has been utilised by the restaurants in Pune city. Most of the times during lock down period restaurants were merely operating only through food deliveries. No restaurants were allowed to serve customers as dine-in facilities were closed. Since unlock phase, restaurants were allowed to serve food within premise but with seating restrictions and new hygiene standards. The paper also tries to find out if these new normal conditions have affected different elements ofsocial media marketing campaigns.The data will be collected through formal questionnaire and interviews. The study will help the restaurants to develop efficient campaigns on social media platforms