HotelChatter

Tags: Twitter / Hotel Marketing / Hotel Concierges / Hyatt Hotels / → All Tags

Hyatt Launches Twitter Concierge for Your Less-Than-140-Character Needs

The hotel world is all a-Twitter today about a new concept launched by Hyatt: a Twitter-based "Virtual Concierge." Essentially, this is a 24/7 customer service Twitter account; you can "@" the HyattConcierge account and you'll get a response back (hopefully quickly); kinda like a concierge compressed into less than 140 characters. Huh.

Hotels Mag says:

The account is being staffed 24/7 by specially trained agents within the corporate customer service group who are available to assist with typical concierge fare like spa appointments, golf outings and dinner reservations. @HyattConcierge will also field assorted guest complaints and queries.

This is most definitely one of the most creative uses of Twitter by a hotel or hotel company — by far — but our feelings are mixed on this one. On one hand, we are posting these questions to the concierges pretty publicly — not to go all Your-Internet-Averse-Mom on you, but, like, be careful what you're putting on Twitter as far as your whereabouts. Also, how much help can you really be in 140 characters?

But on the other hand, we'll give Twitter-ers the benefit of the doubt and assume that nobody will be posting "I'm staying at the Park Hyatt Philly on 5/24 alone. Restaurant recs?" And, based on this Tweet, it looks like they're utilizing DM to exchange contact info to answer questions more thoroughly via telephone.

Is this the future of hotels on Twitter? We'll see — it's definitely cool and interactive, but it serves a totally different purpose than most other hotels' Twitter accounts (which exist primarily to promote packages, promos, news and whatnot).