Is It Crisis Time for HotelTonight or All Systems Go?
Photo Credit: HotelTonight is geared toward spontaneity and travelers looking to book hotel rooms at the last minute. HotelTonight
Skift Take
As competitors close in and some do heavy TV advertising, HotelTonight states that it is doing "hundreds of millions of dollars" annually in gross bookings and that it has grown 100 percent per year over the last two years. This will continue to be an interesting skirmish between a well-funded startup focusing on last-minute versus larger players that can offer more wide-ranging solutions for hotels.
Has HotelTonight missed its moment?
Some, but not all, of HotelTonight's competitors and travel industry prognosticators make that argument.
As HotelTonight approaches its fifth birthday in December, skeptics see its brightest days as being behind it as big competitors have caught up. After disclosing more than $81 million in venture funding through early 2014 and attracting a post-money valuation of perhaps $320 million or so, HotelTonight can't possibly grow fast enough in the face of such competition to bring substantial returns to investors and make a successful exit, critics charge.
But the jury is out and likely won't issue a verdict on the exit strategy issue for several years, and some admittedly bare bones performance statistics from HotelTonight tell a different story.
HotelTonight burst on the scene in late 2010 as a same-day hotel-booking service built from the ground up as a mobile-only app, and it was indeed the fastest hotel-booking app on the planet. It was
