Tonight-only hotel deals start a smartphone app arms race, but who does it best?
Skift Take
Everyone wants a little chunk of the last-minute business. It's going to come down to who makes it easiest to find what a user wants with the least number of taps on the smartphone.
With smartphones in hand, today’s travelers are staying in the moment -- and booking hotel rooms at the last minute for the same evening.
2012 may go down as the year of the same-day, tonight-only hotel booking via smartphones and tablets as a bevy of travel sites, including Hotel Tonight, Priceline, Travelocity, and Jetsetter, now feature tonight-only hotel deals, with promises of discounts ranging from 40% to 70%. The outpouring of hotel deals starting tonight, bookable sometimes through a few taps of your mobile weapon of choice, comes as Expedia and Travelocity say up to 70% of their mobile bookings occur on the same day. This is a procrastinator’s delight. The proposition is that these companies claim they can deliver steep savings off published rates at the last minute so hoteliers can fill rooms that otherwise would go unoccupied, with their bed sheets undisturbed. Are you really getting a deal? [caption id="attachment_28308" align="alignright" width="358"] Screen shot of Hotel Tonight's iPhone app.[/caption] You should always try to fi