Build it and they will come - apparently. But why, then, have travel brands not really given much effort to making their Facebook profile as functional as the main website?
Is it because visitor numbers to the Facebook are generally lower than the website? Or that the Facebook back-end is a pain to code against?
The answer to those arte probably a respective yes (to a certain extent) and no (it's apparently quite easy).
Maybe, alternatively, Facebook is sinply seen as the engagement vehicle for a brand, rather than a direct selling channel - and to mess about with heaps of additional features found elsewhere is a waste if time? Most likely...
Some are certainly dipping their toes in the water of additional, web-based functionality within their Facebook pages. Malaysia Airlines, for example, was the first airline to put a booking engine into Facebook in February 2011 (and also some neat seat-pick tools for travelling groups), whilst most recently, Best Western launched a own reservation tool for its fan page.
But at the extreme end of this functionality are a clutch of companies throwing everything at Facebook, presuming that their customer base is as familiar with Facebook (and uses it as much) as conventional websites.
Hostel booking service GoMio is one such company, collaborating with technology company Appnostic to make its Facebook page as web tools-friendly as possible.
The Appnostic social commerce platform SocialBooker is integrating and launching with GoMio this week.
The application sits within the existing GoMio fan page and pretty much allows every single piece of functionality that a user would normally do on the main website to be carried out within the social network.
This includes accommodation search and availability...
To booking...
As well as map-based search and videos...
So while many brands extol the virtues of a bit of product search within Facebook, often some images and content, before sending users back off to the main websites, interrupting not only the user experience but booking flow, this integration has simply transferred the entire experience into Facebook.
The application is almost a mirror of the main website and, interestingly, some of the functionality is better than users would find on a standalone hostel booking service.
But here is an interesting point: GoMio has just a few thousand fans on Facebook, a figure some might argue is not high enough to justify the effort clearly taken here with the integration.
Perhaps this then is the smartest bit...
GoMio will license out the booking and content service to other hostels, so they can integrate it into their own Facebook pages.
This arguably gives GoMio an opportunity to reach new hostels with a B2B service on the functionality side of a relationship, potentially tap into a new revenue stream, as well as increase its coverage of properties around the world.