Subscribe
Login
Online Travel

Mobile-First Booking Startup HotelTonight Expands to Desktop

Sean O'Neill photo
Sean O'Neill
sam shank hotel tonight

Photo Credit: CEO Sam Shank long resisted the need to appear in desktop browsers, partly due to the highly episodic nature of travel-related purchases, which incurs very high acquisition and "acquisition" costs via search engine optimization and marketing. But times change.  HotelTonight

Skift Take

HotelTonight is no longer a mobile-only company. It's no longer just for same-day stays, as its name once implied. Investors seem to want no potential income left on the table, even if the brand must lose some of its original distinctiveness.

HotelTonight, the online travel agency that stood out from the crowd by being mobile-only, has debuted a desktop version. HotelTonight's introduction over the past 10 days of a desktop site had been predicted by Kayak CEO Steve Hafner a year ago in an interview with Skift, when he said, "Ultimately (HotelTonight CEO) Sam (Shank) has a losing hand. Next up... an HT website that accepts bookings.” Without a web version, HotelTonight has not been able to advertise on the desktop version of Google's price-comparison, or metasearch. Google's metasearch enables vendors to bid on users searching for travel dates on shorter lead times and to redirect those users to landing pages that are highly optimized for conversion with typically fewer properties listed and often fewer filter options providing distractions. HotelTonight could boost its share of the market by finally competing with ot

Online travel coverage is exclusive for Skift Pro subscribers.

Subscribe for full access to all Skift coverage for as low as $55 a month.
See the latest online travel headlines.

Apple Pay, Google Pay, Paypal, VISA, Mastercard, Discover, American Express

Already a subscriber? Login