As Priceline, Hotel Tonight, Blink Booking et al battle for the PR with launches of same-day bookings for hotels, Kayak quietly introduced the same thing six weeks ago.
Launched on May 15 this year, users of Kayak’s apps can find hotels in their immediate area (using the GPS function of the handset) with availability for the same day.
Kayak says the average saving on a hotel on its system is around 25%, even 35% or more in Europe.
More than 300,000 hotels worldwide are currently featured on the Kayak mobile service, although not all will have opted for the same-day booking service.
The Kayak take on same-day bookings is far lower-key than the others hitting the market. Users have an option to check for same-day availability, get results and are then either redirected to one of its partners for the booking or, in some cases, can book direct within the app itself.
The arrival and growth of same-day bookings on a mobile has turned into quite an interesting battleground in recent months, with Hotel Tonight raising a hefty $23 million in funding and launching in the UK, Blink Booking also raising capital, and Priceline-owned Booking.com also eyeing the opportunity.
There are already diverse views on the best approach – just a handful of carefully selected properties of Hotel Tonight and Blink Booking vs the scattergun approach of Priceline, as well as some bickering over apparent savings to be made by users.
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