Booking.com launches app for last-minute hotel bookings

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The app lets the customer specify location, price range, amenity preferences and other desired hotel characteristics. Booking Now has an inventory of more than 580,000 properties worldwide, Priceline said.

Priceline’s Booking.com division launched a mobile app, branded Booking Now, for last-minute hotel reservations.

Booking Now lists hotel deals for rooms available within 48 hours (mobile room bookers reserve about half of their rooms within 48 hours, Booking.com says). 

The app lets the customer specify location, price range, amenity preferences and other desired hotel characteristics. Booking Now has an inventory of more than 580,000 properties worldwide, Priceline said.

With Booking Now, Priceline jumps further into the last-minute mobile booking fray, which is occupied by large competitors and smaller startups. 

Among those startups are HotelTonight, which was founded in 2011 and whose investors include Starwood Capital Group CEO Barry Sternlicht.