an easier path to profitability, English says, since the company can serve more customers with fewer resources. But he’s still excited about the company’s human touch because he thinks it will help build deeper relationships with customers than if its service was “just pure bits on a screen,” he adds.
Another feature users asked for is the ability to book travel in the app, but still earn rewards through loyalty programs, like frequent flyer miles and hotel points, English says. Many business travelers have a dozen or more travel apps installed on their smartphones because if they make purchases through travel search firms like Kayak or Expedia, they don’t earn rewards points, he says. The goal with Lola is to have the best of both worlds—a meta-search app that consolidates their travel apps into one, but still earns them the benefits of booking directly with hotels and airlines.
“It’s a better experience for the traveler, and it’s much better for the hotels,” English argues. “They have a love-hate relationship with sites like Expedia. … Hotels like the [additional] traffic, but they don’t like that Expedia tries to own the customer and tries to do cross-selling and up-selling.”
