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Another thought (should I have edited my original post?) - this may have been a pure Customer List & Historical Data acquisition play. They may have purchased HT fully knowing that they'll lose hotel partners at contract expiration... could be next year or in 2025.

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I mean, what kind of data could they really want? Lists of people who stay in hotels when they travel? Probably cheaper ways to get marketing lists like that. Their market is essentially anyone and everyone that travels.

They probably want to put Airbnb listings as options on the hotels tonight app.

Targeting.

If you know someone goes to London every November, your targeting return just went up 100x.

The nature of HT is last minute spur of the moment bookings.

I guess there are at least two categories:

1. Those that are in another city, knew they were going to be there, and didn’t book ahead (or just need an extra room?)

2. Those that live in a city and decide to get a hotel room tonight.

I’m actually having a hard time figuring out who’s booking last minute (and why a site specializes in it) other than for parties (large groups or.... by the hour).

I’m like 50/50 with booking things in advance and not. Prices don’t seem to go up too much so sometimes I value the flexibility of not booking until needed.

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