As per its usual recipe, Amazon seems poised to enter a new market early next year: the travel market. The retailer is rumored to launch a service dubbed Amazon Travel that will allow users to search and book hotels.
The news comes via travel news specialists Skift and if true, it could mean lots of travel sites may have a bad year in 2015. Amazon Travel is rumored to start off small with hotel options available in New York, Los Angeles and Seattle but the company would be able to iterate and expand quickly afterwards.
According to this same report, the giant online retailer will allow hotels to publish info, images and offers on its site for a 15% commission on bookings. And right now the company is going by TripAdvisor ratings in choosing whom to partner with.
Apparently Amazon is already out talking to potential clients and Amazon Travel may launch as soon as January 1st, marking another major addition to the company’s portfolio.