[ad_1]
Travel-comparison site Kayak is launching into a new business, a 52-room tech-forward hotel in Miami Beach in partnership with Life House.
The Kayak Miami Beach, which was a Life House property that was a victim of the pandemic-induced travel collapse, will serve as a test lab for a Kayak-developed software package for independent hotels with the pitch being that it would capture all of the travel demand that Kayak can generate.
The property, according to Kayak co-founder and CEO Steve Hafner, would offer guests contactless checkins and checkouts through the Kayak app, a trend that is hardly revolutionary. There would also be 24-hour access to hotel staff and support through the app, as well as amenities such as smart TVs and Marshall speakers.
Hafner told Skift Tuesday morning that the hotel software under development would aim to be an all-in one solution connecting property management systems, demand management, and communications, for example.
Additional properties are on the drawing board besides Miami Beach, Hafner said, adding that he would like to find a way give the software away to hotels for “free.”
Acknowledging the failure of sister company Booking.com’s attempt to sell hotel software to partners in the form of BookingSuite, Hafner said Kayak is building its hotel software package from the ground up.
“Timing and execution counts for a lot,” Hafner said, acknowledging that Booking.com experienced channel conflict with partners. In other words, big hotel chains partner and compete with Booking.com, and didn’t want to further strengthen the online travel agency.
Kayak, Hafner said, is a smaller brand and has a different philosophy and goals than Booking.com did.
The Kayak and Life House partnership is yet another sign that competition will heat up for independent hotels over the next few years.
Major hotel companies like Marriott, Hilton, and IHG have all touted deals with independent hotel owners to take on a brand affiliation — a process known as a conversion — hoping to propel growth during the pandemic when construction lending remains tight for new hotels.
Better visibility and distribution is a big part of the branded argument, but Kayak’s foray into hotels could be a major disrupter to potential conversion talks in the greater hotel industry.
That will take time, however. For now, Kayak is opening a sole hotel, which is slated to officially take guests starting April 11. The property is already accepting reservations.
Life House’s selling point to independent hotel owners is its low-cost model in operating in the so-called lifestyle or boutique hotel space. Kayak would boost distribution and visibility by highlighting Kayak-branded properties on its booking engine.
Kayak is not getting into the business of managing or owning hotels as Life House will run the Miami Beach operation. The property owner appears to be Raven Capital Management.
While Las Vegas-style resorts are likely not in Kayak’s future, and the company is not targeting brands affiliated with the likes of Hilton or Marriott for its developing software, Hafner indicated the company was looking at properties both in the U.S. and abroad in both the leisure and business travel space.
“We do intend to launch other Kayak-branded hotels,” he added. “We don’t intend for Kayak to be a hotel brand, but we do want to learn from having our own branded hotel.”
Hafner said one idea behind the Miami Beach property would be to use learnings from the property to jointly develop the software with Life House. Kayak intends to contribute consumer trends and pricing insights from the billions of travel queries it is privy to annually to enhance integrations with cloud-based property management systems, and co-develop “sophisticated distribution channel management.”
In that regard, as with Booking.com’s BookingSuite, independent properties would have to consider whether they want to entrust the distribution of their properties to a Booking Holdings brand, namely Kayak, given that the parent company has so much skin in the distribution game.
Photo Credit: Kayak CEO is pictured at the company’s new hotel, the Kayak Miami Beach. Kayak
[ad_2]
Source link