You knew it was only a matter of time until Alexa got involved in booking travel.
HotelPlanner has launched a feature that uses the virtual-assistant technology to connect customers to hotel-booking agents who can make reservations for them anywhere in the world.
It's just a little clunky: Using an Amazon Echo or the Alexa app, a customer must first say "Alexa, enable the HotelPlanner skill." Then they say, "Alexa, open HotelPlanner" or "Alexa, ask HotelPlanner to make a new reservation in Boston."
Then Alexa connects the customer to a human at Hotel Planner as a priority call, bypassing other calls waiting in the queue.
Meanwhile, HotelPlanner is completing its merger with Reservations.com and ramping up for its debut on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol HOTP.