Booking.com Sharpens Last-Minute Booking Focus With Standalone App
Skift Take
Focus, such as Booking.com's sole attention to lodging, has frequently been a winner in online travel. Booking Now's focus on last-minute bookings, instead of trying to be all things to all people in a multipurpose app, may produce substantial gains.
Booking.com, which has offered tonight-only deals in its app since 2011, has debuted a new, standalone Booking Now app for "spontaneous bookers," though the company is putting an interesting spin on the definition of spontaneous by letting guests book up to 48 hours in advance.
There has been some erroneous reporting that the Booking.com app launch means that Priceline is getting into last-minute bookings with a new iPhone app when actually Booking.com is building on capabilities that it launched nearly four years ago, and sister company Priceline.com implemented the feature even earlier than that.
[Editor's Note: GigaOm, linked to above, has since changed its headline to "Booking.com focuses on last-minute booking with new iPhone app," though other outlets still incorrectly report this is Booking.com's first entrance into last minute bookings.]
Household names in online travel, including Priceline,
