People always wish that the hotels were like they see in the Movies. If you are in Mumbai, ‘Gateway of India’ should be right outside of your window. In Kolkata, ‘Howrah Bridge’ too should be visible from your bed. And chilling out on the bed of your hotel room, watching television while still in a night-suit, is sometimes the best part of the vacation.
But, is that possible? For a room in these location normally cost a fortune. Don’t worry ‘HotelBids’ has the solution! It can get these expensive hotel rooms at an affordable price, through last minute deals.
What is HotelBids
It is platform which gives customers the ease to book rooms at their choice of price. Customers so far, had to visit various Online Travel Agency (OTAs) to get the best price for a hotel room. But no site gave consistent rates and still doesn’t. But HotelBids has passed the ball to the customer. The company tagline is, “Customers don’t search, search comes to them.”
How it works
HotelBids follows a bidding model. Customers need to open its website or app, and have to select city, date, type of room, facilities and the price they want to pay. After that, requests go to various hotels of the filled up cities and customers get multiple responses. And then, a customer can pick a hotel of his choice.
How it started
About two decades ago, OTA’s concept came into limelight. The aim was to provide two-way solutions to both customers and hoteliers. OTA gave hoteliers online visibility by which their sales increased and they made good money. On the other hand, consumer got the facility to find the various hotels in one place and they could choose them according to their budget.
But of late, people are fed up with OTAs’ solutions because of their unorganized rent rates, 20-30% service charge and other terms & conditions. On the hand, on an average 30% rooms always remain unoccupied. US-based hotel.com Founder Inder Sharma, too was facing the same problem. One fine day a bright idea clicked and he found a solution to both problems. He along with his friend Aneesh Chopra, Founded HotelBids offering hoteliers a freedom to rent out their rooms at the last minute. The site however, doesn’t have pre-booking service and hoteliers remains ultimate decision makers.
HotelBids’ current status
Currently, around 2,500 hotels in 69 cities are registered on the this platform. The target is to have on board around 8,000 hotels by the 2017 end. The company is already getting around 200 booking requests every day.
Investment made so far in HotelBids
Company has received three rounds of angel funding so far. All investment has come from Hospitality professionals from USA. As company is still a private, company has a policy not to disclose any funding at this moment.
Future Plans
Inder Sharma says, he is planning to go international by Jan 2017 and plans to launch HotelBids in the US. Company has already simultaneous plan to expand to major global cities like Paris, London, Singapore, Rome, Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Vancouver, Montreal and more travel destinations. Global expansion is planned for 2nd quarter of 2017. Company will be seeking Series-A Venture capital soon for India and Global expansion.
A wise man doesn’t travel to discover hotels, but according to James Russell Lowell, “A wise man travels to discover himself.” So stop discovering the hotel rooms during your fun time just go to HotelBids and the ‘search comes to you’.
