Amazon Chickened Out of Travel – 25 Moments in 2015

Skift broke the story more than a year ago that Amazon would attempt to transform its heavily discounted and sporadic hotel-booking service and seek to get serious about hotels, offering hoteliers the chance to sell their rooms on an ongoing basis at published rates.

It launched Amazon Destinations in April, as a limited service that focused on hotel stays within driving distance of several locales in the Pacific Northwest, Southern California and the Northeast. Then it abruptly shut down its hotel business with little notice in October.

Asked why Amazon obliterated the service, a spokesperson merely said that the company had learned a lot from the experience.

Perhaps the situation was best-summed up obliquely recently by Expedia CFO Mark Okerstrom, who said at a financial conference, without specifically mentioning Amazon, “And I think that like many before them have found, it’s not as easy as coming up with a website, it’s different.”

The Full Story: 

• Amazon Abruptly Shuts Its Hotel Business After Stilted Efforts to Compete
• Exclusive: Amazon to Get Into Hotel Booking with Launch of Travel Site
• Amazon Travel Launches New Brand, Amazon Destinations