Hopper, the app that lets you know when the flight you want is being sold for the cheapest likely fare, has expanded into hotels. But is this of relevance to corporate travel buyers?
Hopper users previously booked a flight via Hopper and then went off to another site for the hotel but it seems another specialist app has become a one-stop shop.
Hopper works by using mountains of historical and present data to tell you if you should book your flight now or wait because the fare is likely to drop further . The hotel component will work on the same principle of calculating the window when hotel rates in your destination are likely to be at their lowest.
Such apps follow the general principles of travel management — maximise savings through all means including choosing the most auspicious timing for booking — but fly in the face of some previous sacred cows, namely that the further out you book a flight, the more likely you are to get the cheapest fare.
The new world approach of using data and algorithms and all the principles of revenue management to optimise income are a step up in sophistication from those general rules that sellers — and buyers — used to follow only a couple of years ago.
Time of booking was always a favourite tool in the changing traveller behaviour methodology of minimising spend. The general principle is sound but general is not the same as universal. This rule is true for business destinations such as Frankfurt where bookings are not predominantly made months in advance but if your business happens to be in a primarily leisure destination such as Palma, Malaga or Corfu, you might find that booking far out can be more expensive than booking closer to the time of departure. After all, leisure travellers book holidays far in advance so the time of high demand is not the last minute but at the time of decision-making which, for leisure destinations, tends to be far in advance.
As revenue managers increasingly apply more destination-specific factors such as capacity and locally relevant times of peak demand when fixing prices, so too must buyers if they are to achieve the keenest prices of purchase.
As sellers increasingly use a range of general market and time and destination-specific data to fine-tune their pricing behaviour, so too will buyers be using tools such as Hopper to decide the right time to buy.
- Hopper's hotels feature is currently available only on IOS and for New York properties. Availability on Android and for 10 other US cities is expected soon and international roll-out is scheduled for 2018.