Taking social media in travel to a whole new level, a US company has launched a Twitter-based hotel booking service.
Stayful.com, founded by Cheryl Rosner, formerly of TicketsNow, Expedia Corporate Travel and Hotels.com, and Shariq Minhas, formerly of Jigsaw, Expedia and Hotwire, launched ‘TweetStay’ this week.
The service matches customers with independent hotels via Twitter, as long as they are staying within 30 days.
Twitter users simple make a request by tweeting with the hashtag #tweetstay, stating where they want to stay and when.
Stayful then negotiates a rate with a boutique hotel and tweets back a link with a rate which it claims is better than is usually available online.
“Hotels want to make sure they book all their rooms, and travellers want great savings,” said Rosner.
“Since we negotiate prices behind the scenes in real time, we can offer TweetStay customers a better price than they can find online, and the process couldn’t be simpler for users – they just tweet what they need, and we send back exclusive prices on stays at great independent, boutique hotels that they can book right from their mobile phone™
At present, hotels are available in key US cities including Boston, New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Miami.
