Skift Take
OpenTable hasn't shown progress with international expansion as fast as its parent company, the Priceline Group, first anticipated. While the Group invests in revamping OpenTable's product, the app update is only available in certain English-speaking markets. It is building up user reviews and will have to get more multilingual to trigger more-robust growth.
OpenTable describes its app update in iTunes as a product customers use to "discover, explore, reserve, and manage restaurant reservations free and instantly — anytime, anywhere" -- emphasizing "discover and explore" before "reserve."
The phrasing isn't casual as OpenTable wants to be known as more than a dining reservations platform and wants to cover the entire dining experience. Customers can now browse curated lists and recommendations within the app.
Curation, rather than personalization, is the core feature of OpenTable's new app iteration. For the first time, OpenTable's app features a Discover tab that organizes nearby restaurants into various categories, including recently opened restaurants, top-rated restaurants and those recommended by OpenTable insiders and food critics.
Under this tab, customers can also see restaurants with immediate availability in real-time and those with available tables for
