Amazon Local Travel: Learn how it impacts hotels
Amazon Local Travel is going to change the game in the hotel industry and provides yet another powerful competitor to soak up organic and paid search traffic. This is a new product from Amazon so we’ve dissected what we know about the Amazon Local Travel offering and will provide our clients updates as they become available through our Amazon Local Travel Strategy Guide.
Amazon Local and Amazon Local Travel are a combined effort from Amazon – they new offering simply adds to the Amazon Local business unit and offers hotels a good way to drive lower room rates during shoulder seasons or off season times to drive more volume. This is not going to be a marketplace where you will raise ADR for your hotel. Amazon Local Travel brings together invited hotels and gives them flexibility to control their inventory and publish rack rates in the system.
Curated Collections: We’ve seen literally hundreds of Curated Hotel Collections pop up in the past decade like Leading Hotels and others. Amazon Local Travel is simply going to be a new curated hotel collection.
Boutique Hotels get access first? Yes. Independent Hotels get access first? Yes. This change of take-to-market strategy is new for Amazon, they’re giving small boutique and independent hotels a chance to take the reigns before the big hotel chains get a chance to drive the new offering. Amazon’s focus on Independent Hotels and Independent Resorts will give consumers access to interesting and exciting vacation ideas in their local drive market.