Amazon to Launch Hotel Booking Site

Travelling to New York, Los Angeles or Seattle soon? Starting in early 2015, you can book your stay at curated independent hotels on Amazon Travel. 

Hotels will be able to load their availability, room types, photos, and pricing information into an Amazon extranet and would be charged the standard 15% commission by Amazon. Upon receiving a booking through Amazon, the properties will get email notification and will be able to chance their calendars through the extranet. Payments from Amazon will come in two different installments and Amazon had opened up the potential for discussion of lower commission rates. Many hoteliers are eager to sign on for Amazon's new service foreseeing the potential to leverage Amazon's widespread membership base and marketing power online and on mobile. 

A hotelier heavily weighing signing up for the service states: "first and foremost, it's Amazon.com," adding that Amazon plans to use TripAdvisor ratings as criteria for choosing which properties to include on their booking site. Only those with four stars and above would be considered. Amazon Travel also plans to include editorials per destination listing top attractions and must-see-events. 

Amazon states that its mission is "to create a marketplace for retailers who might have difficult finding customers, and a high-profile section of Amazon.com in the form of an Amazon Travel would offer such a marketplace for independent and boutique hotels who don't have the marketing power of big hotel chains or online travel agencies at their disposal." 

With the immense amount of customer data Amazon has accumulated over the years, they potentially have a strategic advantage to OTAs and hotel booking sites. Pairing information about a customer's interest to travel alongside retail offers such as a camera could prove highly beneficial. 

Amazon's success in disrupting online travel will depend on how great the user experience is and whether it manages to drive traffic. They may just be able to sign prominent hotel brands by putting margin pressure on online travel agencies, providing more hotel-friendly payment terms and maintaining lower distribution costs. Read more about Amazon Travel's future plans here.