Amazon Travel Doubles Hotel Coverage and Appoints Former Expedia Exec as GM
Skift Take
Officials at Booking.com and Expedia know their hotel businesses are so far ahead of Amazon's nascent moves that they aren't cowering in fear at the might of Amazon. But you can bet they will be taking a hard look at the expanded Amazon Destinations today, as will the folks at Google and TripAdvisor.
In a sign of its commitment to its growing hotel business, Amazon appointed Tim Lane, an ex-Expedia lodging-operations vice president, to the new position of general manager of Amazon Destinations.
Lane has been director of Amazon Local sales and operations since August 2013, after having left Expedia a few months earlier, and was working on Amazon Local's burgeoning hotel program.
With Lane now in place as general manager, Amazon has redesigned its Amazon Destinations pages and doubled its hotel coverage from three to six metro areas, and from 17 to 35 destinations within driving distance of those metro areas.
Supplementing hotels in the Pacific Northwest, Southern Cal
