Skift Take
Disruption in the travel industry is a universal constant, and we can certainly expect Amazon and Google to continue that tradition. An even more interesting question to ask ourselves for the moment: Why aren't Google and Apple doing more to get their smart devices into hotel rooms like Amazon is?
Amazon made news this week when it announced the debut of Alexa for Hospitality, a business unit entirely devoted to the placement and usage of Amazon's Echo smart speaker devices in hospitality settings that range from hotels to vacation rentals, and everything in between.
The launch of Alexa for Hospitality was a clear signal from Amazon to the hotel business — and the travel industry at large — of the company's strategies for getting more deeply invested in the travel space. Today, at least for Amazon, it's via smart devices. Tomorrow, it might involve voice search, or perhaps, the debut of Amazon's own online travel agency platform?
Prior to Amazon's announcement on Tuesday, Skift spoke with various hotel executives at the NYU International Hospitality Industry Investment conference in early June to ask them for their thoughts on tech giants such as Amazon and Google, and what they said might surprise you.
While some of these executives welcomed these players, others expressed hesitation, or doubts about working with them. All, however, noted that they're keeping a close watch on what companies like Amazon and Google are doing.
The Importance of Voice Search
When Choice Hotels debuted its new central reservations system for its franchisees earlier this year, the company designed it to specifically accommodate voice search, and it built it "native to the Amazon Cloud," Choice Hotels CEO Pat Pacious said.
"The relationship with Amazon, I think, is going to be a real positive one," Pacious said. "Because they're not just our cloud provider; they're also considering us to be what they call a 'lighthouse' customer. There are really only two other travel businesses, Expedia and Airbnb, that are sitting on the Amazon Cloud. So, we've already started working with them around some of the things we might do with them on the consumer front."
Pacious had noted, as far back as August, that Choice has been testing the usage of booking a hotel room via Amazon's Alexa artificial intelligence system and in June he confirmed, "Our team has kind of figured out how to book a hotel room with Alexa." Now, the company is navigating how to bring that to market.
Voice search, in Pacious' view, will be yet another important distribution channel for hotels and that's why Choice made sure its new c
