Skift Take
Will voice-enabled booking for hotels actually take off? Guess we'll find out first with Choice Hotels' partnership with Google.
Choice Hotels, the Rockville, Maryland-based company behind such franchise hotel brands as Comfort Inn, Clarion Pointe, WoodSpring Suites, and Cambria Hotels, is investing in technology — and its brands — as it competes with other hotel providers.
On Friday during the company's fourth quarter 2018 and full year earnings call, Choice Hotels CEO Patrick Pacious noted how the company is committed to "delivering best-in-class franchisee resources," including new a new central reservations system and distribution platform, called Choice Edge, as well as forming partnerships with companies such as Amazon and Google.
Last month, the company migrated more than 1,000 applications from its legacy systems to the Amazon cloud, also known as Amazon Web Services — which is also utilized by other travel companies such as Airbnb and Expedia.
And earlier this year, Choice became th
