HotelTonight Essentially Pivots to Become Hotel Whenever
Photo Credit: Hotel Tonight is advertising in places it hopes to find spontaneous travelers, such as New York City's Madison Square Garden. Skift
Skift Take
HotelTonight's pivot into a 100-day booking window is a concession that the last-minute market was too small. Yet the company's swing to profitability is remarkable.
Beginning in October, mobile-only hotel booking site HotelTonight will expand from having a seven-day booking window to a 100-day booking window.
The move puts the San Francisco-based company in more direct competition with the brands owned by the large travel conglomerates that dominate online travel sales in many parts of the world: Expedia Inc., Priceline Group, and Ctrip.
HotelTonight has raised $115 million in funding. This spring, it had a Series E round of $37 million, led by venture capital firm Accel Partners.
In 2015, HotelTonight was losing about $2.5 million a month on revenue of about $33 million, as first reported by The Information.
Since then, the company has become profitable by the measure of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization —a standard industry figure that excludes such things as expenses related to hotel occupancy taxes.
A recurring critique of HotelTonight from scattered industry skeptics is how it can compete again
