Flip.to is a very simple, but very clever platform. The concept goes something like this:

1. Someone books a room at your resort or hotel.
2. After checkout, they are presented with an offer that includes a reward if you share something, and a discount for those you share it with.
3. Clickers on your shared link are greeted with a customized page asking them to enter their email to claim their discount.
4. They then use their discount to book and you use their contact info to further marketer to them.

While not yet used by any ski resorts (aside from one hotel in Telluride), I came across two golf resorts who are giving it a try.

Kiawah
Here are two example tweets of shared links:

Planning my upcoming trip to Kiawah Island- staying at Kiawah Island Golf Resort. Get a savings perk on me here: http://t.co/jUEhYVWknZ

— Donna Grizzard (@dgrizz) October 2, 2014

Planning my upcoming trip to Kiawah Island- staying at Kiawah Island Golf Resort. Get a savings perk on me here: http://t.co/CzdysDF3nv

— Chris Cooke (@ccooke007) July 9, 2014

Wild Dunes
And here’s another from a guest who booked lodging at their resort:

Planning my upcoming trip to Isle of Palms- staying at Wild Dunes Resort. Get a special room rate on me: http://t.co/Bz6NBh1i57

— Tami B. Burris (@GreyTami) October 7, 2014

A Few Stats
Being the data-nerd that I am, I’ve pieced together some stats between social data I’ve pulled and public numbers they’ve shared in press releases. All of these stats are averages per resort using their service:

• Extra Social Reach / Day: 625
• Extra Website Visitors / Day: 16 (2.6% click rate)
• Extra Bookings / Day: 0.5 (3% conversion rate)

Now, keep in mind these are extrapolated from press releases so they may represent only the best of the best or cherry-picked data. Regardless, there is promise.

Use It?
I’m on the fence. Obviously if you do the math compared to the pricing they quote you can make a pretty straightforward decision. But I do have my reservations (no pun intended) since they use a monthly fee model instead of a percentage on transactions.

The big red flag to me is that the volume of shares is fairly low. From watching shares on Twitter, I’ve seen some properties that see links tweeted only once every couple weeks. This may be confirmed through their huge increase in clients recently but only a tiny jump in Twitter shares over the last 6 months.

Can it work? Of course. It’s just a matter of the price justifying the reward. Clever tech, regardless, and I’m interested to see how it further develops.

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