Amazon set to launch hotel booking business
Amazon is reportedly set to become the latest ecommerce giant to break into the online travel business.
A report by New York-based travel information website Skift cited unnamed contacts at three hotels who had been approached by Amazon, saying an accommodation booking service will be launched January 1.
To start with, it will feature a curated list of properties ‘within a few hours drive’ of San Francisco, Seattle, New York and Los Angeles.
Amazon will take an industry standard 15% commission on bookings through Amazon Travel, and editorial content of local attractions will be displayed alongside featured hotels on its website.
The report says Amazon has selected potential hotel partners based on ratings of at least four stars and above on TripAdvisor and would limit the number of properties it features per destination.
It suggests Amazon will focus on independent hotels that do not have the online presence of major hotel groups.
It is likely to be an attraction for hotels due to its mega-marketing power, global reach and big data capabilities.
Amazon gets about 65 million visitors every month to its US website.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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