Articles tagged “hoteltonight”

The tonight-only hotel space in Europe is hardly even beginning to take shape, and there will be plenty of room for several players. But it is getting interesting now.

How long will it be before we talk about travel websites as always having an essential, if limited place, in much the same way that we sometimes talk about print guidebooks? Smartphones with bigger screens, tablets of mini and maximum dimensions ... buckle your seatbelts.

HotelTonight's success to date is validation of at least two things: Going mobile-only from day one, and focusing on just one thing, hotels.

If HotelTonight is really attracting incremental demand -- travelers who otherwise would have gone home or slept on the street for the night -- then that's testament to the staying power of same-day hotel apps -- and disposable income.

Do you want great hotel rates for tonight, or do you want all the rates for tonight that are available on mobile? Hipmunk is banking on its belief that travelers will go for the latter so they don't have to hop around from app to app.

HotelTonight blazed a trail in the U.S. as a first-mover in same-day, mobile hotel bookings. Although it has strong financial backing, achieving the same rate of success abroad may be a lot more problematic.

As a first-mover, HotelTonight is in an enviable position. The company faces competition from imitators, including big brands, but there absolutely will be more than one winner in the same-day booking sector. There is a whole big world out there.

Hurricane Sandy brought to a light a lesser-known function for the popular booking app as a disaster relief tool.

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.

You can make the argument that this acquisition will get more relevant hotel deals to consumers, but HotelTonight's acquisition of PrimaTable really is about maximizing revenue for the hotels and HotelTonight.