India’s Goibibo has released its “Reserve At Rs.0 and pay later” feature which enables travelers to reserve and book rooms without making any upfront payment.
The feature comes in two variants – in the case of 23,000 participating hotels, customers can reserve a room at Rs.0 and then make the payment right before checking-in, while in the case of 12,000 participating hotels, travelers can pay at the hotel while physically checking-in. Zero cancellation charges are applied in both scenarios.
The new feature, along with the facility of free cancellation, is looking to boost confidence of customers who may not have used online hotel booking yet. It is aiming at driving larger traffic for participating hotels across the length and breadth of the country.
The launch of the “Reserve at Rs.0” feature comes after the release of numerous ‘industry first’ features from Goibibo like “Photo reviews”; “Question and Answer”; “Go Time Guarantee”; “goContacts social network”.
Speaking on the release, Ashish Kashyap, Founder & CEO, ibibo Group said, “It has been our constant endeavour to improve user experience and drive penetration of hotels on mobile and internet. ‘Reserve at Rs.0 and ‘pay later’ feature is an initiative in this direction. This feature takes away the payment friction at the time of booking thereby increasing conversion rates and hence occupancy rates for hotels”.
