Kayak, which offers a travel metasearch engine and deals’ e-mail, says it will begin to be a provider of exclusive hotel deals.
Kayak began soliciting people on Twitter to sign up here for the exclusive deals, called Private Sale, before it goes live.
This has been in the works for several months, and apparently the debut of private sales is inching closer.
Kayak says the hotel deals, which will be exclusively available to Kayak users who sign up, will feature hotel deals up to 50% off and will last until the inventory is gone.
Don’t they all?
“Private Sales have limited inventory and run until we sell out,” Kayak says. “Once the Sale closes, the hotel price is no longer available… anywhere.”
Kayak adds: “Kayak securely collects your information, the hotelier processes your transaction.”
Details to come.
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Signing and managing exclusive deals takes time and a team. Either a rev mgt team or a hotel market management/contracting team. Kayak’s amazing claim to fame is their growth number compared to low staff number (77 people last time I heard). To negotiate deals they will need people in market (or at least market devoted). Wont they? This means many many more people. Doesnt it? Which means higher ops cost. Surely?
Timothy: you’re absolutely right.
And it’s not the only area of the business that will need scaling up resource-wise if they are to start taking credit card bookings via mobiles.