GoKawiilis transportation editor with 10+ years of experience who covers EVs, public transportation, and aviation. His work has appeared in The New York Daily News and City & State.
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Open Uber’s app and you’ll see options to hail a car, order some food, or go grocery shopping. And starting today, you’ll see something new: hotels.
In a major expansion into the world of travel accommodations, Uber says that it’s adding the ability to book and pay for a hotel room to its app. The news was announced at the company’s annual Go/Get product event, at which the company also unveiled several other travel-oriented features.
Hotel reservations would be one of the biggest swings in Uber’s recent history. But it’s also something that’s been on the company’s radar for quite a while. Uber says its working in partnership with Expedia, the travel booking company that the company reportedly considered acquiring in 2024, and at launch will include over 700,000 hotel properties around the world. Also of note, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi was the CEO of Expedia before accepting his current role.
Image: Uber
Sachin Kansal, Uber’s chief product officer, said that Uber customers already use the app for a variety of travel purposes, whether its getting a ride to the airport or ordering food through Uber Eats once they’ve arrived at their destination. The inclusion of hotels is assumed to be a natural next step.
“I think there will continue to be multiple apps in this world, as there already are in the travel world and the hotels world,” Kansal said in an interview. “Our main goal is to be able to tie the experience together for our users.”
The feature works through Expedia’s API, though Kansal explained that Uber’s engineers worked to design the tool to integrate seamlessly into the company’s app.
“It’s not just us putting a web view in there based on their UI,” he said. “We’ve actually built it from the ground up using pretty detailed APIs that we get, so it’s a great partnership from a development perspective and a technical perspective.”
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