Is Amazon getting into the travel business?
It seems that Amazon is not happy with just dominating the online retail sector.
If reports doing the rounds today are true, you may soon be adding hotel bookings to your purchase along with that new Stephen King novel and Blu-ray of the latest Marvel movie.
Travel news site Skift says Amazon is working to set up an online booking service for independent hotels and resorts near major cities.
The report says the initial rollout of Amazon Travel would have a selection of hotels near New York, Los Angeles and Seattle, and could go live as soon as January 2015.
“Properties would load their room types, availability, pricing information, and photos into an Amazon extranet and would pay a standard 15% commission to Amazon for the prepaid bookings,” the report says.
“The properties would get notified by Amazon via email of bookings, hoteliers said, and they would update calendars on the extranet. The hotels would generally list their properties at rack rates, but would be free to discount.”
If the hotel booking service is a success, maybe Amazon could look at taking on the airlines next. If it can deliver packages by drone, why not people?
