IHG VP Explains Decision To Go Gowalla

FourSquare has been the dominant player in the nascent location-based mobile social media segment to date, boasting roughly 1 million users to date. But its chief rival, Gowalla, made a splash this week by partnering with IHG to serve as a primary information-delivery system for the hotel company's summer "Hit It Big" promotion.

Given that FourSquare has five times the market share that Gowalla does, the decision to go with the upstart over the "established" name (although let's face it, both are pretty obscure as far as the general public is concerned) was met with a great deal of head-scratching.

I asked Del Ross, IHG's vice president of global e-commerce solutions, the obvious question: Why Gowalla?

"It wasn't an either/or for us," he told me. "We always like to test and try new media when they emerge; it's really more opportunistic than anything else." Ross said he liked the way Gowalla enables and encourages the exploration of new locations moreso than FourSquare's interface, although he admitted the differences were esoteric enough that explaining them in detail would be difficult. He emphasized that the choice should not be interpreted as an endorsement of one over the other. "We just felt the style and the voice of the Gowalla approach just fit better with this campaign."

The learning curve is steep for companies using location-based social media, in large part because the user base is so fragmented. As such, Ross has no idea what to expect from the Gowalla effort. "We learn by research, but we also learn by doing," he says. "If we gain nothing but knowledge about this platform and understanding of how to use it, then we've won."

As for the promotion itself, IHG is offering guests double Priority Club points or double air miles if they register for the promo. And what exactly is the Gowalla tie-in? Guests who check-in to Gowalla while on property get notified of the promotion.

Not horribly exciting, but some sexier location-based social media promotions may be in the offing from IHG, Ross says—things like onsite discounts, incentives and added amenities. "All this stuff is in the hopper and in our idea basket today, and once we get a better handle on how this medium seems to work for us, and we'll go from there."