Amazon May Announce A Hotel Booking Website Soon

Amazon has their hands in a lot of things, and a new report suggests they're preparing to get involved with a very unlikely revenue stream. Sites like hotels.com or Expedia take a cut of the reservation fee when you book a room, flight, or car rental. that's their revenue model, and Amazon may want a cut/ According to travel site Skift, Amazon is preparing to launch a site dedicated to travel bookings, and will have a dedicated portal for booking through Amazon.

The report says Amazon is sourcing independent hotels in various locations, and even has partners already signed up. It's noted as featuring "a curated selection of hotels within a few hours' drive from New York, Los Angeles, and Seattle", which suggests a more bed-and-breakfast angle.

From the way it reads, Amazon is basically opening up their sellers portal for hotels. Partners would log-in, and load what type of rooms they had, the availability, and pricing. Pictures and/or video could also be uploaded. Bookings through Amazon would net Amazon a 15% commission.

Like selling on Amazon, all notifications and payment processing would funnel through them. A calendar would also update automatically should someone book a room.

The benefit is reach. Amazon's page is visited far more than any travel site, so having a room listed there — even if it's via a sub-page — would be very attractive. If it all goes well, expect Amazon to target major hotel chains later on, too.

This is very much unconfirmed, but Skift says Amazon will go live with this around January 1, 2015.

Source: Skift