Friday, May 1, 2009

Exclusive savings on Twitter yield big profits for Priceline and Kimpton



Wowza - the phone really started ringing after my post about exclusive Twitter hotel deals earlier this week. I commented on Dennis Schaal's Travel Weekly article on Priceline's successful hotel bookings Twitter promotion, and participated in an interview on Addison Schonland's popular podcast also on - you guessed it - Twitter-only sales. And now it seems Priceline's newest Twitterati promotion
("Cinco De Mayo Promo! May 5th - 500 random followers will get a $50 HOTEL COUPON! More followers = better chances!"$50 Twitter coupon to book a 3-night stay) will be an even greater marketing success. This promotion is designed to reward folks with the largest number of followers, so the most influential Twitterers will win the bulk of the 500 coupons. Pretty clever, Mr. Negotiator.

I'm delighted to report that my favorite hotel company, Kimpton Hotels, has what may arguably be the "richest" Twitter-exclusive promotion>..."as a thanks for helping us reach the 1K mark, Hotel Helix, Hotel Madera,
Hotel Rouge and Topaz Hotel will offer $89 rates Sun-Thurs. and 15% off the best rate using the TWTR code any other time." Cool. These are great hotels, and often go for more than double those rates on their websites. And I checked the Kimpton Website under promotions - you won't find it there. Twitter can truly become the "velvet rope" of hotel promotions. So thank you, Kimpton - I've already booked my exclusive Twitter rate, and I look forward to your hospitality. Another reason I like my Twitterati status!

2 comments:

Roberta said...

Interesting... it was easy for me to follow Priceline on Twitter (it was right there on their home page) but I gave up trying to follow Kimpton Hotels - looked on 3 different pages on their website, then searched on Twitter, no luck.

Craig P. said...

Susan, first of all your blog and information provided is exceptional for upstarts such as http://www.cheapertravel.com We're now on twitter and doing our homework ready your stories. Thank you.
Craig Pavlus