Booking.com Launches Booking Now in NZ

Booking.com Launches Booking Now in New Zealand, the First Truly Global App for Spontaneous Bookers

More Than 600,000 Accommodations Ready to Book in Just Two Taps

Personalised Search Results with Booking.com’s Best Price Guarantee

NEW ZEALAND – MARCH 4, 2015 – When making accommodation reservations within 48 hours, travellers don’t need to sacrifice quality, breadth of choice or satisfaction for spontaneity. Following success in the US and Canada, Booking.com, the world’s number one accommodation site, today announced the launch of Booking Now in New Zealand. A new mobile app that revolutionises the on-demand travel space, Booking Now provides a completely personalised booking experience tailored to individual customer preferences and location. By incorporating user behaviour data as well as GPS technology, it is the only app to showcase the world’s largest selection of more than 600,000 properties around the globe to provide custom accommodation recommendations for spontaneous travellers. The Booking Now app will be available in 42 languages as it launches in countries across the world over the coming days to ensure extensive global optimisation for travellers.

Rooted in and developed out of a deep understanding of proprietary customer data, the launch of Booking Now supports the growing importance of mobile when it comes to booking accommodations within 48 hours. According to Booking.com data, almost half of worldwide reservations made within 48 hours are booked on a mobile device, and in some markets, more than 50 percent of all spontaneous bookings are made via a mobile device.

“With the launch of Booking Now, we’re increasing our investment in mobile by leveraging our global scale, assets and partnerships to accommodate the growing number of customers who are booking reservations within two days or less of their stay,” said Darren Huston, Chief Executive Officer of Booking.com. “The new App puts users at the centre of the booking experience, drawing from our vast database of properties to meet their specific preferences at the very moment they need to book. Booking Now is designed to deliver a seamless mobile experience for spontaneous consumers, fitting perfectly into their multi-device, on-demand lifestyle.”

Booking Now personalises real-time search results based on the unique traveller profile created by each first-time user to indicate specific accommodation preferences, such as desired price range and options like parking, breakfast and Wi-Fi. Users are then presented with the most relevant available accommodation suggestions based on their profile and within their defined location, allowing them to modify their choice of accommodation to whichever local delights are on their ‘must-see’ list. Users can quickly and easily browse through the recommended options with a single swipe of their finger and book their preferred accommodation in just two taps. With Booking Now’s predictive analytics, the more frequently customers use the app, the more personalised their recommended matches become. Additionally, as user’s swipe through the app, they can pin their top hotel choice to the map to create a short, visual list for quick and easy reference.

“We are increasingly finding that Kiwi travellers’ are booking their trips, for either business or pleasure, on a much more spontaneous basis,” said Tracey Foxall, of Booking.com New Zealand

“Booking Now is the perfect solution and travel ‘buddy’ for our more impulsive and on-the-move travellers. They are able to land in a destination and instantaneously book accommodation that fits their every need and desire, in as little as two taps of their finger.’’

Further customising the experience, Booking Now results can also be based on the user’s current street-level location anywhere in the world. The app’s GPS technology then provides step-by-step directions from the current location directly to the user’s accommodation of choice, a first for hotel-booking applications.

Backed by Booking.com’s reliable global network with 24/7 customer support and access to the world’s largest network of more than 42 million verified guest reviews, Booking Now is designed to sit alongside the existing Booking.com mobile application and will continue to offer users the best price, with no hidden fees and a seamless “pay when you stay” model.

Booking Now will be available for download in the Apple App Store on March 4, 2015.

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