CEO Bernard Quek said, “Most booking engines embedded within a hotel’s Facebook page now take the customer to the hotel’s website to transact.

“Ours allows the booking to be transacted within Facebook, which then leverages the power of “e-word of mouth” and also the hotel’s ability to understand these customers a lot more through their social profiles.”

Asked if this could raise privacy issues, Quek said Facebook had privacy settings which customers can use if they wished to block any information.

“The benefit of booking via Facebook means it becomes more than a booking. There’s the power of e-word of mouth. After you make a booking, you can share it on your wall and hotels can incentivize you for sharing.

The first client in the pipeline to trial this Facebook booking engine is the independently-owned and managed Rembrandt Hotel in Bangkok.

Quek say it has been the company’s mission to create tools that help drive direct booking to the hotel leading to lower distribution costs and increased customer loyalty to the hotel.

He said the solution was aimed more at independent hotels which needed solutions that could help them target customers directly, and recognize and reward them.

GHS’ also offers the iRewards loyalty system which taps into social networks and allows a hotel’s loyal customers to check their points on Facebook, for instance.

“The concept of customer loyalty programmes hasn’t changed but we now have more tools and new technology to engage with customers,” said Quek, who has been in hotel distribution, loyalty marketing and technology for more than a decade. “With mobile and social media, we can now engage better to create better loyalty.

“We are creating new ways for customers who are using Facebook on a daily basis to book hotels,” said Quek. “We have to create channels suitable to customer needs.”

Its clients include independent hotels such as Royal Plaza on Scotts, Singapore, and regional groups such as Far East Hospitality. Novotel Clarke Quay has also recently implemented the system.

“We are targeting not just consumers but SMEs in Asia – the number of hotel sales people have limited market reach, they cannot cover the market thoroughly and must focus their attention on key accounts. If their SME customers book via OTAs, it costs the hotel money so these tools are really being used to capture unmanaged business.”

It costs under US$10,000 to set up the iRewards system. “We have a 5% revenue share model on member-related spend,” said Quek. “We only make money when the hotels make more money.”

He said it had a large database of bookers and travelers in the company’s database. One hotel that has used iRewards to its benefit isRoyal Plaza on Scotts, Singapore, which has a huge membership services team and a well-executed programme.

“It takes commitment from the top to make this happen,” said Quek.

One question is whether having a Facebook booking engine would re-direct transactions away from the branded websites of marketing organisations such as Warwick International Hotels (of which Rembrandt is a part) and WORLDHOTELS which also target independent properties.

To Quek, it is a question of going where the customer wants to be. “It is disruptive but it is where the market is going.”

He also noticed another trend – with the increased use of mobile, “people now want to talk again and with Skype and low cost calls, the call volume for hotels is going up again, so at the property level, hotels are finding they need new skills to handle these calls.

“This means customers could bypass everything – the CRS, call centres and brand – and go direct to hotels.”