Every few months, HotelTonight invites top users to visit
its offices and participate in roundtable discussions. CEO Sam Shank said they
talk about what they like about HotelTonight and what they would like the OTA
to do better.
The regular sessions have turned into drivers of change at
HotelTonight, including the latest addition to its repertoire: the ability to
book multiple rooms at a hotel.
"That's how we look at the market in general,"
Shank said. "If we take care of the customer, well, we're going to
generate a lot of loyalty and a lot of repeat business, which is what we're
doing."
HotelTonight introduced multiroom booking this month as a
response to customer booking behavior. Shank said the company found that about
3.5% of its bookings were for multiple rooms in the same hotel for the same
night and were made through sequential bookings.
"It's not the end of the world to do that," he
said. "I've done it myself for family trips and for a getaway that I did
with my high school friends. But it could be better if you didn't have to go
through the process over and over, and we knew that, so we decided to build it."
It's the latest feature addition to an OTA that has evolved
since its founding in 2010, when it did exactly what its name implies: Users
would go to the app to book a hotel for that night. Within months of launching,
Shank said, it became clear that users liked its simplicity and curated hotels,
so its services started to expand.
First came the ability to book a multinight stay, followed
in 2014 by an expanded, seven-day booking window. Then, at the end of 2017,
Shank said, that booking window extended to 100 days.
"Booking multiple rooms at a time is a continuation of
that, of giving people more flexibility and giving people more ways to use
HotelTonight," Shank said.
Asked if HotelTonight's booking window could ever expand
beyond 100 days, Shank said, "The sky's the limit in terms of taking care
of our customers."
While HotelTonight's capabilities have expanded, its name
has remained the same, and Shank said branding hasn't caused issues.
"I look at the 'Tonight' as being more metaphorical,"
he said. "It's about the overall experience of your stay, about the magic
of spending a night somewhere else and having an out-of-home experience that
will be memorable."
Plus, Shank said, no matter when a user books a hotel, "you
always check in tonight."
Shank said HotelTonight differs from its OTA peers because
it was designed as a mobile service. While it's now available on larger
screens, its focus remains mobile-first, and customers enjoy its simplicity.
Screens were smaller when HotelTonight was started, according
to Shank. The app was designed to be used on an iPhone 3G, which had a 3.5-inch
screen. In comparison, today's iPhone XS has a 5.8-inch screen, and the XS Max
has a 6.5-inch screen.
"We worked really hard to make it extremely simple, and
that's something that we've preserved and is really a key part of our product
DNA," he said. "I think that really shines through and manifests in a
lot of ways that really set us apart."
Shank said his company succeeds by staying customer-focused.
"We compete in the marketplace by starting with the
customers, looking at what their needs are and then making sure that we're
providing the best possible solution for them, regardless of what else is in
the marketplace," he said. "Just listening to the customer has always
been our North Star and has served us very well."