You Can Now Book Hotels Through Twitter

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Social media have been growing explosively in the travel sector as more consumers engage with tools like Twitter and Facebook and more brands clamor to take advantage. In the early stages of social adoption, many consumers used the tools to vent frustration, communicate with peers and help plan itineraries. As brands caught on, specific online profiles and portals were set up to interface with customers, often providing a shortcut to customer service and more personalized support. Delta Air Lines was one of the first pioneers in this field, launching the @ DeltaAssist twitter feed and winning handfulls of awards in suit.

As social continues to grow, travel brands are now looking into new ways to take advantage of the strong communities and new media. To that end, Loews Hotels are now letting users book hotel rooms completely through Twitter, removing the need for an online booking portal. According to USA Today, users need only tweet to @Loews_hotels and use the hashtag #bookloews for an online agent to respond to the tweet and sort out the details. When a rate and dates are settled, the booking agent will send over a secure form for credit card processing.

Twitter booking service is scheduled to begin on November 14th.

Through the Twitter sales portal, Loews hopes to capture part of the growing market segment more comfortable with social media than traditional phone, travel agent or even web browser orders. Though that segment is likely still fairly small, it's growing rapidly partially because of the spread of mobile devices and better-designed apps. A recent report produced by Skift reports that mobile sales have risen from 3.4B in 2011 to 13.6B in 2012, suggesting that the rate of sales on portable devices is effectively skyrocketing.

'The growth is driven largely by brands that have figured out ways to speed booking and payment on mobile devices,' Jason Clampet, head of Content at Skift tells me. 'You're much more likely to use mobile apps or websites if you can book and pay in three taps rather than keying in a 16-digit credit card number with your thumbs.'

Also likely fueling the boom is the maturation of the social generation. As young adults born in the digital and mobile age graduate out of school and enter the mainstream economy, they're bringing a mobile-first mentality to online booking.

Either way, it's a smart, low risk move on Lowes part to spend a little time developing a sales channel on Social media. If it's successful, expect other hotels to follow suit.