THE recent surge of last-minute booking apps in an increasingly competitive online marketplace has triggered a wave of interest among the Asian travel trade, who debated over the potential and challenges of same-day apps during the No Vacancy Southeast Asia 2013 conference in Bangkok.
Increased mobile usage and Asian travellers’ inclination towards last-minute vacations spells potential for mobile-dedicated solutions, according to Tomas Laboutka, CEO and co-founder of HotelQuickly, a same-day, mobile-only booking app (TTG Asia e-Daily, May 3, 2013).
Laboutka remarked: “HotelQuickly would enable hotels to optimise occupancy real-time and RevPar while protecting their branding and fostering loyalty among customers.
“Unlike travel flash sites which train travellers to wait for a certain brand to offer hugely discounted rates, we rotate the inventory in real time every day, so users won’t know which specific brand will be available on a particular day.”
However, same-day booking apps drew mixed reviews from hospitality industry members that TTG Asia e-Daily spoke to.
“Last-minute apps are unlikely to work with the big chains due to the higher commission rates of 20-25 per cent versus 15 per cent for OTAs,” said Shade Shah, revenue and yield manager of Park Regis Singapore. “Unlike boutique hotels, our brand awareness is already there, so we don’t really need such apps (to boost branding).”
On the other hand, a hospitality industry leader who declined to be named, said: “The OTA scene is very competitive and mature now as many hotels are already participating there. Our hotel is now playing it wide, tapping new channels such as Agoda, Groupon, HotelQuickly, social media, etc, to utilise all partnerships since we always play rate parity.”
When asked if last-minute booking apps are revolutionising the travel landscape, Agoda CEO, Robert Rosenstein, replied: “We view them as competitors, but it’s up to consumers. We also work closely with hotels. We could also sell rooms at huge discounts, but do hotels want that?”
