In the past couple of weeks Amazon Local updated its iOS and Android apps and began on-boarding a handful of independent hotels offering their rooms at published rates, which is a big departure from the steeply discounted, distressed inventory that has been the mainstay of Amazon Local over the past couple of years.
That’s important because Amazon is trying to give hotels the flexibility to work with Amazon on an ongoing basis and not just when they have rooms to sell at 40 percent or 52 percent cheaper than published rates when the hotels are feeling the pinch.
You can expect Amazon to continue to explore ways to expand the boundaries of its hotel business, and to seek to find a different value proposition for hotels and consumers than the rest of the pack.
