Priceline
NORWALK, Conn., Jan. 28, 2013…A new priceline.com (Nasdaq: PCLN) study of New Year’s Eve hotel booking activity has found that 42% of all mobile-equipped travelers waited until after 5:00 p.m. local time to pull the trigger on their New Year’s Eve hotel reservations.
Meanwhile, 65% booked their rooms after 2:00 p.m. and 13% waited until after 9:00 p.m. to make their reservations. The data reinforces earlier priceline.com studies suggesting that travelers with mobile devices are more prone to make their travel reservations at the last minute, often after they’ve arrived in their destination city.
“Travel apps like Priceline can be game changers for hotels on holidays like New Year’s,” said John Caine, priceline.com’s Chief Product Officer. “It gives them that one more shot at selling last-minute rooms to mobile-equipped travelers who already may be in, or close to town, having dinner, clubbing, or watching the fireworks.”
To assemble its data, priceline.com reviewed bookings made through its free Priceline app for iOS and Android devices, and its Tonight-Only Deals service for the app. The app is particularly popular among mobile users because it allows them to find hotel discounts up to 35% or more for check-in that same night. Every Tonight-Only Deal shows the exact hotel along with amenities, photos, location, guest reviews, satisfaction scores and, of course, the specially discounted rate.
The New Year’s Eve study looked at which destinations were the most successful in pulling in procrastinating revelers, and where these mobile consumers found the biggest room savings.
Top Last-Minute New Year’s Eve Destinations For Mobile-Equipped Travelers
#1 Las Vegas Strip
#2 Downtown Chicago
#3 Houston Galleria
#4 Downtown San Francisco
#5 Downtown Boston
#6 Chicago’s Grant Park
#7 Atlanta’s Midtown/Downtown Area
#8 Downtown Minneapolis
#9 Downtown Denver
#10 Downtown Seattle
Savings, which were substantial in some cities, could have been a driver for close-in New Year’s bookings. Mobile-equipped travelers using the Tonight-Only Deals feature on the Priceline app to book their New Year’s Eve rooms saved an average of 53% in San Francisco, 52% in Las Vegas, 41% in Seattle and 37% in Chicago.
The Priceline app with the Tonight-Only Deals feature can be downloaded for free from the iTunes store.
Priceline.com also offers a version of the app, with hotel and rental car booking features, for Android, that can be downloaded for free from the Android market.
Priceline.com also has a mobile-friendly website: m.priceline.com
About priceline.com
Priceline.com, part of The Priceline Group [NASDAQ: PCLN], gives leisure travelers multiple ways to save on their airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, vacation packages and cruises. In addition to getting compelling published prices, travelers can take advantage of priceline.com’s famous Name Your Own Price® service, which can deliver the lowest prices available, or the recently added Express Deals®, where travelers can take advantage of hotel discounts without bidding.
