Power is everything, especially when it comes to money - that's what Lukas Zirker and his start-up are banking on.
Anyone who books a trip online is sometimes quite powerless when it comes to the price.
Travel portals such as Expedia or Booking.com present offers with supposedly best prices, which can, however, fluctuate significantly at the particularly popular time.
Escape the jumble of prices confidently, only those who sit for hours in front of the screen and meticulously compare prices can do that.
Kim Maurus
Volunteer.
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According to Zirker, this model is reaching its limits. “Younger people in particular don't need that much information; they don't want to know every detail of the room,” he says. “We want to be much simpler.” Zirker is the founder of the Austrian start-up Midnightdeal “on whose website users can book hotel accommodation - at a price they set themselves. “We want to encourage the user to take the helm in hand,” says Zirker.
Travelers who like to travel can use a slider to bid for their dream accommodation - those who slide the regulator to the right offer a higher price, and those who move it to the left are more likely to be looking for a bargain.
As a rule, the bidder will find out at midnight at the beginning of the new day whether the hotel will accept his offer.
The start-up, founded in 2017, brokers accommodation in Italy, Croatia, Austria and Germany, and since 2019 the hotels in this country have also been bookable via the platform.
Emojis indicate whether you like the price
Playing with the prize is reminiscent of Ebay, while Zirker calls it the “gamification concept”. According to the founder, the prices on his website are on average 35 percent cheaper than on other online portals. "For that I would put my hand in the fire". For every booking, the Hotels Midnightdeal pay a commission that, according to Zirker, is average in the lightning sales segment. There are currently offers from around 120 hotels online.
The hotels determine the price range of the slider together with the start-up. Along the span there is a so-called tolerance price that only the hotel and Midnightdeal know. If the offer is above this price, an algorithm decides according to the classic principle whether the bidder receives his offer: "If there are five rooms and seven bidders, the rooms go to the five best bidders, and two go empty," says Zirker. Below the tolerance price, the hotel decides whether a booking at the price offered is worthwhile for the company. If the user moves the slider, emojis ranging from sad to happy show him how good the chances are that the price proposal will be accepted. And for those who don't want to play with the price, there is always a fixed price,for which the accommodation can be booked directly.