The article of today explains a new application for iPhones (and soon for Androids), that allows people to book a "hotel for tonight". That's the name of the App, and so far, it is only available for New York, San Fransisco, and Los Angeles, and it offers only 3 categories of Hotels in these towns: Hip, elegant or basic.
But can you imagine if this app is more developed?People who don't have the time or patience to comparison shop but still want a deal on their room will use it. The best target market might be businessmen, often in business trips for instance.The way the service works is you are only able to book a hotel the same night, and for that reason, their prices seem to be better than many travel sites, and its much more hassle free to book.
Personally, I think that this kind of App will totally change a certain way of consumption people have today. If you try a booking for tonight in popular websites, most of them could not offer you that, and it is a shame!
Hotel Tonight sell hotel ONLY for the same night, and ONLY trough its iPhone app. Don't try to book a hotel on their website, it doesn't work!
Moreover, the app is very clever and fast to use, because it assumes that the reservation name is the iPhone's owner's one, so it permits to skip all the tedious steps of a regular booking.
I really hope that Hotel-Tonight will be extended to more cities in the world because it does sound promising!
A few years ago we didn’t know what was a mobile phone. Today, they are becoming “computers” in their own rights !!!
RépondreSupprimerI think this is a good way to book the hotels in last minute as it allows customers to make the reservation the same day of their arrival to the hotel and for hoteliers to benefit from it. As Alia says, it can especially be helpful for business people who travel a lot and don’t have time to spend on their bookings.
But it is really a pity that this app is only available on Iphone or Ipad and not on other Smartphone’s or website. Hopefully, the “hotel for tonight” will improve its website in order to allow future customers to book easily the hotel through the website.
Your article and your comments are very interesting. It is quiet convenient to have this kind of application available on our Iphone especially if we are travelling and we did not book a room before to arrive in the city...
RépondreSupprimerIt also allows the hotels to have a better visibility and to improve their communication media through a new tool : application on phones !
Good news I found the same application for France ! It is called "Hôtels" and it is almost better than this one. It shows you where you are on a map with all the hotels around with the better price that the app can find. Very convenient when you do not even know where you are in a city that you do not know !
Here is a new way of consuming which will in my point of view gain more and more success among professionals but also among the technology users customers. If it was developed for the whole world will of course extend its range of customers due to the attractive prices and to the rapidity of booking. Their development will also allow them to offer much more better rates because even if they are already interesting, the fact of being worldwide will help them put pressure on hotels which will need to compete worldwide.
RépondreSupprimerIphone application are living an incredible development but generally it is hard for an application to keep on interesting because people buy/acquire more & more application and finally don't use it anymore after a few week. It is why the application needs to be really developed and market in order to become a currently used application. The other way to acquire new customers would be to be adaptable for other types of phones (blackberry, nokia,..) until it is available on Androids.