There have been several experiments on last minute deals – but most of these experiments were confined to travel (flights, specifically). With hotels being the NextBigWhat in travel space, there needs a disruption that brings last minute deal to consumers when they need it.
Hong Kong and Bangalore based SavvyMob brings last minute hotel deals that are up for grabs. The app-only product shows the best deals around in real time. These deals are curated by SavvMob team, which has 100+ hotels on its platform.
On an, average price discount on SavvyMob are around 20-30% below the Best Available Rate, claims Bikram Sohal, who was earlier with Turner Broadcasting and AOL India. At Turned, Bikram launched CNNGo, the travel product.
Why App-Only Travel Product?
What’s interesting about the product is that it is app-only, which is extremely rare given how much of SEO drives travel conver$ion. Why mobile-only distribution model?
“The App-only business strategy gives us an early mover advantage in the nascent mobile travel booking market which is growing at a double-digit clip. Additionally, it provides us a platform to target our users during their travels with our new products that we will launch at a later stage.” [Bikram]
A marketplace this thrives on how SavvyMob can drive engagement and actually manage to occupy space in one’s home screen, after all you don’t look for a hotel deal every day. Maybe, they need a better content engagement strategy or a gamified way to pump social deals ?
For hotels, the deal is very simple – they need to fill unsold inventory and also, app-only option enables them to stay away from SEO discovery.
If you are a frequent traveler, do give SavvyMob a spin and share your comments.
» Recommended Read : An Open Letter to App Travel Startups.
Ashiish K Sinha
