NORWALK, Conn., July 23, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- In response to
a growing number of mobile-savvy travel planners and bookers,
priceline.com, a leader in online and mobile travel, is today
launching an updated "Tonight-Only Deals" mobile booking platform,
with an enhanced search option and expanded list of participating
hotels. Tonight-Only Deals (SM) offer consumers fully revealed
details such as name of hotel, price, location, star and guest
ratings and amenities. The new search feature will allow
consumers to easily search for Tonight-Only Deals by sorting them
to the top of the list. According to new research
commissioned by the brand, twice as many Americans today are using
mobile travel apps to book hotel accommodations compared to 2013*,
and more than one third (35%) are doing so on a frequent
basis. As travelers become increasingly more comfortable
booking same-day hotels via travel apps, priceline.com is making it
easier for customers to find these savings by creating a more
streamlined experience. With over 1,000 new properties recently
added, Tonight-Only Deals product now features 4,000+
mobile-exclusive hotel deals up to 40 percent off.
Priceline.com also surveyed its own mobile customers to get a
deeper understanding of today's mobile travel shoppers that
continue to shape the app and found that mobile users are not
necessarily the spontaneous or procrastinator types. In fact,
the majority (58%) of priceline.com's mobile customers are planning
trips in advance but waiting until the very last minute to pull the
trigger on booking the hotel, sometimes just hours before arrival,
in order to get the best deal. These new On Demand Travelers,
who check hotel rates in advance and know they will get the best
price close to or on the day they need a room, along with
spontaneous travelers who decide to travel last minute (about 42%
of priceline.com's mobile customer set), are shaping the continued
digitization of travel, with the ability to plan and book anywhere,
anytime.
"Those who reserve hotel rooms at the last minute, especially On
Demand Travelers, continue to be the main drivers of mobile
bookings as well as the inspiration for innovation around travel
app products like priceline.com's Tonight-Only mobile hotel deals,"
said Brett Keller, Chief Marketing
Officer for priceline.com. "Priceline.com's latest expansion
of Tonight-Only hotels gives our last-minute travelers even more
confidence to find and book industry best deals at the very last
minute."
Interestingly, while On Demand and spontaneous travelers have
discovered the secret to scoring the best hotel deals, the average
American has not yet caught on to the last-minute technique.
In fact, 70 percent of respondents to priceline.com's general
population survey shared they frequently worry about overpaying for
a hotel room, yet nearly half (46%) said they book far in advance
in order to save money on their hotel stay. Only 15 percent
of respondents noted that they book at the last minute to save
money. However, of priceline.com customers surveyed, 77
percent had scored a deal when waiting until the last minute to
book a hotel.
Additional comparative findings from the general population and
customer surveys include:
- Planning ahead is key for both audiences, but the approach
is different: Seven weeks is the average amount of time
Americans plan their vacations in advance. Nearly half (46%)
of Americans surveyed also booked their hotel rooms 4 or more weeks
in advance; whereas 66% of priceline.com's customers researched
hotel options within one to two weeks or less, potentially saving
up to 40% on the room rate.
- Travel "hacks" are common, but not all are effective:
77% of Americans noted that they try various travel hacks to save
money on their hotel, including booking far in advance (46%) and
booking only on certain days of the week (24%). And, while
many are using mobile travel apps, 51% have never booked hotel
accommodations using an app, which means they are missing out on an
entire set of exclusive deals only found on mobile.
The Tonight-Only Deals campaign includes a national television
advertising campaign. Tonight-Only Deals are available on both
Android and iOS mobile devices. To download the priceline.com iOS
app, click here. To download the priceline.com Android app, click
here. For more information, please visit www.priceline.com/media or
connect with priceline.com on Facebook and Twitter.
*According to an eMarketer, Inc. report from April 2014 titled, "Travel Purchases on the Go:
Mobile Hotel Booking Surges, but Other Transactions Lag," which
includes data from mobile device users, age 18+, who booked travel
via mobile device at least once in 2013.
About Priceline.com
Priceline.com, part of The
Priceline Group [NASDAQ: PCLN], gives leisure travelers multiple
ways to save on their hotel rooms, airline tickets, rental cars,
vacation packages and cruises. In addition to getting compelling
published prices, travelers can take advantage of priceline.com's
famous Name Your Own Price® service, which can deliver the lowest
prices available, or Express Deals®, where travelers can take
advantage of hotel discounts without bidding.
About the General Population Survey
The priceline.com
survey was conducted by Wakefield Research
(www.wakefieldresearch.com) among 1,000 nationally representative
U.S. adults from June 22 to June 29,
2015, using an email invitation and an online survey.
Quotas have been set to ensure reliable and accurate representation
of the U.S. adult population 18+. For the interviews
conducted in this particular study, the chances are 95 in 100 that
a survey result does not vary, plus or minus, by more than 3.1
percentage points from the result that would be obtained if
interviews had been conducted with all persons in the universe
represented by the sample.
About the Priceline.com Customer Data
Priceline.com
conducted a survey of 4,837 last-minute mobile customers who made
their most recent hotel booking the day before or same day of
check-in on their mobile phone from January
2015 to May 2015 and have
booked more hotels via mobile phone than desktop since January 2014. These customers were incentivized
with a 10 percent Express Deals hotel coupon. The survey was
fielded from June 2 to June 4,
2015.
For press information: Flavie
Lemarchand-Wood, press@priceline.com
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SOURCE Priceline.com