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If you’re looking for a sales job in travel, now might be the time to approach Facebook.

The giant social media site is on a mission to elbow its way further into the travel space and has been reorganizing its sales force.

As HotelMarketing reports Facebook has been recruiting for travel sales representatives as it looks to turn travel, one of its fastest growing verticals, in to one of its biggest. Next year, 2014, is the target year.

All those images, and stories and happy travelers’ tales  posted minute by minute on the site really do stimulate  dreaming and planning about travel.

So, while sales efforts will still be country-based, the new emphasis will be on narrow verticals, especially travel.

A recent study by research agency Sparkler, show that Facebook already enjoys prominence in the critical five stages of travel: dreaming, planning, booking, experiencing and finally, reflecting.

And of course posting.

Impressively, 52% of the site’s users said that when they view Facebook, they already “started dreaming about a holiday even when they didn’t have one booked, and that 95% use Facebook for travel related activities prior to going on vacation.”

It seems that the pictures and comments of friends and families intensify the desire to travel, stimulate the “dreaming and planning” stage more than TV ads and mailers of empty beaches.

See New Media Travel’s No More Boring Hotel Websites for more on the failure of empty hotel rooms, lobbies, guest rooms to stimulate travel.

As a result, MarketingWeek quoted Andy Pang of Facebook UK as saying he hoped travel companies will now see how important it is to advertise on the site.

Leaving nothing to chance (or consumer choice), the Facebook team is looking to improve ad targeting so travel brands can address “travel intenders,” consumers who may not even know they are planing to travel, but will more easily do so, once they engage the travel advertising on Facebook.

And so it goes.

image/Drew Meyers