Starting from November 19th, Loews Hotels and Resorts, a luxury hospitality company that owns and operates 19 hotels in the U.S. and Canada, will allow travellers to book rooms at 16 of its 19 properties via Twitter through its newly launched “social reservations”.
How does it work? Travelers can tweet to @Loews_Hotels with the hashtag #BookLoews to express interest in a room. A Loews travel planner will then follow up with the tweet. Once the guest is ready to book a room, the planner will tweet a link to a secure chat conversation to process payment information.
Jimmy Suh, senior vice president of e-commerce and distribution at Loews, says he believes the program has the potential to boost revenue.
“We absolutely feel confident that it increases the value proposition of Loews, because it enables the person to make a Loews transaction as part of a platform that is part of their daily activity,” he says.
Tomorrow is our #BookLoews debut! @CNTraveler: Hotel reservations come to Twitter: http://t.co/AkcB03icgv”
— Loews Hotels (@Loews_Hotels) November 18, 2013
A first for hotels: Loews @Loews_Hotels lets you book room via Twitter with hashtag #BookLoews. Story @dailydot: http://t.co/lSOLcYHYQF
— Simon (@finewinedine) November 15, 2013
Great idea by @Loews_Hotels You can now use hashtag #BookLoews to reserve a room! The rate? 140 USD:) More @USATODAY http://t.co/2jCrrB80Ui
— Duncan Rhodes/Editor (@UrbanTravelBlog) November 15, 2013
Hotels are increasingly using Facebook and Twitter to advertise promotions and respond to customer complaints. Other than these two social media platforms, earlier in October, we also wrote about Sydney based 1888 Hotel, which claims to be the world’s first boutique hotel to provide free stay to customers who have over 10,000 followers in Instragram.
Will bookings and reservations become mainstream through social media channels in the near future?
Read also: These 5 Instagram users can stay at the Instagram Hotel for free
