Hyatt Extends Concierge Service to Twitter

Hyatt has quietly branded its dialogue with customers on Twitter as HyattConcierge Service.

In an e-mail to Hyatt Gold Passport members, Hyatt announced that it "is extending its hospitality and service to accompany you at all times during your travel journey. Whether it's before, during or after your stay, Hyatt hospitality will be on-hand to make your travel experience easier and more enjoyable through our new service called HyattConcierge, which can be accessed through Twitter by any web-enabled device."

Hyatt advised the twitteratti to just "send us your tweets" if you "need directions to the Grand Hyatt New York? A restaurant recommendation in Hong Kong? A spa appointment at Hyatt Regency Waikiki? HyattConcierge is there to assist you with your travel questions and requests."

Actually, HyattConcierge has been using the Twitter account since May 18, but you have to work out all of the kinks before going public.

So, an hour ago (as of this writing), Joan Toth sent the following tweet: "Hi, having a problem making a Hyatt Crystal City reservation for 7.21.09 - can you help? Mtg room block is sold out. thanks!"

And, Hyatt Concierge responded, within minutes: "Glad to assist! Please DM the name on the block of rooms and the # of nights you wish to stay, so I can find out more. Thank you."

When it comes to customer service issues, many travel companies from JetBlue to United often take the conversation private through DMs (Direct Messages), or private e-mails on Twitter.

In one of my daily Travel InsideOut editions the other day, I picked up a post from the UpTake Travel Industry Blog, which said people at the recent HITEC conference were bemoaning the fact that the lodging industry just doesn't "get" Twitter.

Au contraire.

Obviously, some people and companies in the lodging do understand social media's potential.

Anyway, kudos to Hyatt for using Twitter as a marketing and customer service arm. It makes a lot of sense for a hotel chain to do this because its customers can tweet questions and issues from their cellphones when they are on the go and facing a problem.

How FareCompare Uses 170 Twitter Accounts, ITA Software for 'Dramatic' Uptick

FareCompare, the metasearch site, has more than 170 departure-city based Twitter accounts and it is using them to leverage a calendar-based search, powered by ITA Software, for what CEO Rick Seaney claims is a "dramatic" increase in ticket-sale percentages.

FareCompare, of course, doesn't handle any bookings, but passes off consumers to sites like Orbitz and CheapTickets for reservations.

In the last two months or so, FareCompare began tweeting fare drops using 170 Twitter accounts, such as flyfromEWR, based on the 170 cities in North America with the highest outbound passenger traffic. You can read more here about what FareCompare is doing on Twitter.

The vast majority of the tweets are automated, but FareCompare occasionally has some real-life humans toss in breaking news or other morsels.

So, when flyfromEWR tweeted yesterday "$511r/t Newark to Moscow, fall or winter down 20% [http://bit.ly/40SxBr] #EWR, the #fare," the link starts a flexible, calendar-based search after you enter the month, desired length of stay and number of passengers.

A calendar-based search, powered by ITA Software in the background, checks for seat availabilities using 180 queries (30 days and six lengths of stay), saving the consumer all that "hunting and pecking" that they would have to do to find a seat with a particular fare otherwise, Seaney says.

"We do all of that typing in one shot," Seaney adds.

Using a proprietary algorithm to cull ATPCO pricing-departure data to find fare-drops in tandem with the calendar-based search from ITA, Seaney terms the process "a culmination of four years of work."

"We think this is the right way to shop to save time and money if you have the flexibility," Seaney says.

FareCompare has embedded links to the calendar-based search in its e-mail alerts for around three months, but he views Twitter as more effective than e-mail marketing because the fare drops are tweeted in real-time.

The calendar-based search currently is in a soft-launch phase on FareCompare, and will be getting some home page presence within a week or so.

"Using Twitter as a real-time communication backbone that can touch people in a social network with relevant, actionable information instantly -- is absolutely the next generation in air travel bargain-finding," Seaney said.

Of course, all of that searching using ITA Software is expensive. In addition to referral fees to suppliers, FareCompare makes money, like everyone else, through the advertising around the rails.

Seaney wouldn't provide any precise figures on how significantly ticket sales for FareCompare's suppliers actually have risen, and the company only has been using the 170 Twitter accounts for about two months.

flyfromEWR only had 170 followers today; flyfromLAX had 338 as of this writing.

Still, from the tweet sound of it, it appears that FareCompare is onto something.