Booking.com launches app for spontaneous bookers
When making accommodation reservations within 48 hours, travellers don’t need to sacrifice quality, breadth of choice or satisfaction for spontaneity. Booking.com has announced the launch of Booking Now, a new mobile app that revolutionises the on-demand travel space by providing a completely personalised booking
experience tailored to individual customer preferences and location. By harnessing the power of data based on user behavior as well as GPS technology, Booking Now is the only app to showcase the world’s largest selection of more than 580,000 properties around the globe to provide custom accommodation recommendations for spontaneous travelers.
Rooted in and developed out of a deep understanding of proprietary customer data, the launch of Booking Now supports the growing importance of mobile when it comes to booking accommodations within 48 hours. According to Booking.com data, worldwide almost half of reservations made within 48 hours are booked on a mobile device.
“With the launch of Booking Now, we’re increasing our investment in mobile by leveraging our global scale, assets and partnerships to accommodate the growing number of customers who are booking reservations within two days or less of their stay,” said Darren Huston, chief executive officer of Booking.com. “The new App puts users at the center of the booking experience, drawing from our vast database of properties to meet their specific preferences at the very moment they need to book. Booking Now is designed to deliver a seamless mobile experience for spontaneous consumers, fitting perfectly into their multi-device, on-demand lifestyle.”
Booking Now personalises real-time search results based on the unique traveler profile created by each first-time user to indicate specific accommodation preferences, such as desired price range and options like parking, breakfast and Wi-Fi. Users are then presented with the most relevant available accommodation suggestions based on their profile and within their defined location. Users can quickly and easily browse through the recommended options with a single swipe of their finger and book their preferred accommodation in just two taps. With Booking Now’s predictive analytics, the more frequently customers use the app, the more personalized their recommended matches become. Additionally, as users swipe through the app, they can pin their top hotel choice to the map to create a short, visual list for quick and easy reference.
Booking.com said last year that it had overtaken Wotif as the top online travel agent in Australia by bookings.
