A last minute hotel booking app has added a feature encouraging hoteliers to give discounts on upgrades to maximise income which it says it “challenging the legacy OTA model”
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HotelTonight challenges OTAs with upgrade discount feature on app
A last minute hotel booking app has added a feature encouraging hoteliers to give discounts on upgrades to maximise income which it says it “challenging the legacy OTA model”.
HotelTonight, available on iOS and Android, says one in three hotel rooms typically go unsold “on any given night”.
So to help its partner hotels bolster profits, it asks them to offer suites – that would otherwise be left empty – as last-minute upgrades with as much as 50% off the typical upgrading priuce.
It hopes that allowing customers to make the decision by app “in a single tap” before confirmation will encourage more to do so.
The new feature of the app has been introduced at hotels in London, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Paris and Miami.
To qualify, the upgraded room must be defined as a suite by the hotel and be at least 20% larger than a standard room. Participating hotels must commit to a discount of at least 50% off of their standard upgrade rate.
The new Upgrade feature was the #1 requested addition from customers and hotels, a HotelTonight spokesperson said.
“One in three hotel rooms typically go unsold on any given night, particularly higher category rooms such as suites. Our new feature offers hotels a way to drive incremental revenue by filling rooms that are ordinarily the most likely to go unsold,” Sam Shank, HotelTonight co-founder and chief executive said. “We’re once again challenging the legacy online travel agency (OTA) model by giving consumers access to what are often the best rooms in a hotel, at the best possible value.”
Customers can see which hotels have upgrades available on the hotel’s detail page, or search the app by typing a city name plus the word “upgrade” in the search bar.
