The company Booking.com launched a new mobile iOS-application “Booking Now” in Russia for the travelers who do not book accommodation in advance, but are looking for it part way through in less than two days prior to arrival.

This was told to “Lenta.ru” by the company. “We have observed two types of users’ behavior. Some carefully plan the trip in advance. Others act spontaneously – they can decide to go to another city or country in one day, to change the route on the way or decide to stay longer in one place. Booking Now offers a variety of accommodation options for the latter, actively growing group” – the Marketing Director of Booking.com Paul Hennessy noted. On the first launch of Booking Now the user is invited to indicate his or her preferences - price range, number of travelers, need for Wi-Fi, parking, breakfast and other amenities.

On the basis of these data the service selects hotels and shows the percentage of compliance of hotels with the user’s taste. According to the representatives of Booking.com, the application Booking Now is self-learning: the more often a user books hotels, the better the service takes his or her tastes into account.

The total base of Booking.com now includes more than 600,000 accommodation facilities. Booking Now was launched in January 2015 in the United States and Canada, and later service appeared in Europe and other countries. According to Hennessy, the company expects that the service will be accepted well in Russia - according to the poll, about 61 percent of Russian people called the opportunity to realize spontaneous decisions one of the advantages of modern technology.

The Russian online tourist service Ostrovok.ru launched the function of urgent hotels booking for the current night back in 2013. However, Booking Now takes into account GPS-coordinates of users: default hotels near his or her current location are offered, and you can change the radius of accommodation selection in the search bar. The traveler sees step by step route from his/her current location to the selected hotel directly in the application.