First there was vacation.

Then came the "digital detox" vacation - the no-cellphones, no-Internet-allowed response to increasingly inescapable and seemingly addictive technology.

Now comes the backlash (or at least the appearance of one). The first "Twitter experience hotel" (a k a Sol Wave House) was introduced this summer in Majorca, Spain, where guests can ping requests to a "Twitter concierge" using hashtags like #fillmyfridge; flirt from poolside Bali beds by tweeting numbers printed atop the beds, like "How's it going #balibed10?"; and sip cocktails while checking their smartphones for a live feed of virtual conversations bubbling up from every corner of the hotel.

Melia Hotels International, which owns more than 350 properties, including Sol Wave House, is pioneering the concept amid the still rising popularity of smartphones and social networking. The Internet is in more pockets today than ever before. In July the International Data Corporation, a research group, said the worldwide smartphone market experienced 52.3 percent year-over-year growth.

The number of people on social networking sites is also growing. About 1.3 billion people worldwide are now using social networks (that's about 82 percent of the global Web population), up from about 1.2 billion last year, according to comScore.

Sol Wave House was refurbished two years ago, but the Twitter theme is new.

"The social night-life scene is significant, so we already had a ripe environment that we were looking to augment," said Tony Cortizas, vice president for global brand strategy of Melia, which is based in Palma de Mallorca. The hotel itself is shaped somewhat like an amphitheater, with rooms and balconies that allow guests to peer down at public areas with pools, daybeds, wave machines and D.J.'s. "The clientele coming in are younger," Mr. Cortizas said.

And according to the Pew Research Center, which has been conducting one of the more thorough studies of Twitter, Internet users ages 18 to 29 in the United States are the most likely to use the network, making a Twitter theme hotel a distinct way to speak with that demographic.

Mr. Cortizas said he marvels at how young people are living today. "It's so completely normal for someone to be looking down on the street and walking into people because they're looking at their device," he said. Sol Wave House is striving to "bring what is normal and everyday for these guys and give them a sandbox to play in."

That sandbox includes a Twitter concierge that guests can instruct via tweet to "Get the Cava on ice" followed by "1 bottle, 4 glasses to the solarium," as one visitor did last month. There are images of mustaches on mirrors in the rooms, encouraging guests to tweet goofy photos of themselves, known as selfies. And on Friday afternoons at the height of the season, the concierge uses a pool party hashtag (#twitterpoolparty) to summon sun worshipers.

To create a measure of privacy, all virtual interactions take place within an internal community available only to guests through an app and the hotel's free Wi-Fi. Upon signing in with their personal Twitter accounts, guests can see who else is online, and send virtual kisses to one another. A recent peek showed guests uploading photos of their burgers, asking the concierge if there were any Russians visiting the hotel and participating in contests.

"In our business," Mr. Cortizas said, "rooms are rooms and suites are suites, but in the end it's always about what you are doing to deliver an experience to a customer. We were looking to try and do something that would differentiate us, and we were trying to do something that would be kind of fun."

Why Twitter? What about that other prominent social network? For one thing, competitors are already using Facebook to attract travelers. Take Ushuaia Ibiza Beach Hotel, owned by the Palladium Hotel Group, which enables guests to instantly update their status by swiping their fingers on sensors around the grounds.

Mr. Cortizas said the other major reason for emphasizing Twitter is that it is especially popular in Europe, from which Sol Wave House draws many guests.

The hotel bills itself as the first to create such an immersive Twitter getaway, putting it among a handful of properties that are embracing glued-to-your-smartphone experiences. At the moment, it's still far more common for travel professionals to peddle digital detox vacations.

Among the first to do so was the St. Vincent & the Grenadines Tourism Authority, which created a digital detox campaign last year to lure travelers afflicted by an "addiction to gadgets." The tactic has mushroomed, with hotels as varied as the Westin Dublin in Ireland and the Lake Placid Lodge in New York offering digital detox packages. Some hotels, like the Quincy in Washington, offer perks like gift cards for those who lock their phones in a safe during their stay.

"There's two sides to this story, and we're definitely playing one side of it," Mr. Cortizas said.

The question now is whether Melia (or its competitors) will create more Twitter hotels.

"We're going to reassess at the end of the season," Mr. Cortizas said. "And for sure we're trying to do it bigger and better next year."

The New York Times

(China Daily 10/20/2013 page10)