New Kiwi mobile app gives cheapest available hotel rooms

New Kiwi mobile app gives travellers cheapest available hotel rooms for that night Launches nationwide with 14 participating hotels

Auckland, Thursday 20th October 2011

Today, ‘Get a Room’ launches to provide travellers with the very best rates to book hotel rooms at the last minute on their mobile phones. The application, available exclusively on the iPhone, allows people to book after midday for rooms that night.

Launching initially in Auckland and Wellington, with Rotorua, Christchurch and Queenstown to follow shortly after, the application is aimed at business travellers and nighttime revelers booking at very short notice. Because the rooms are booked so late, Get a Room is able to negotiate unbeatable rates on behalf of the punters.

Get a Room Founder Veronica Nobbs saw the opportunity for the business when working at Jason’s Travel as a market analyst:

“Increasingly, I saw that customers were booking on the same day as their stay and hotels often have rooms going spare. I knew there was a gap in the market.”

Get a Room is a free, mobile-only business, which is an emerging trend in an era when everything is done on the move. Nobbs added:

“Get a Room is seeking to challenge the way New Zealanders think about hotel booking.”

“This is taking last minute booking one step further by allowing people to book rooms at the very best price when a meeting overruns or you have one too many drinks to drive home.”

JUCY Hotels is one of the initial wave of hotels to sign up and Founder and CEO Tim Alpe added:

“At JUCY, we love using next generation technology to make things easier for the customer and this is a very smart initiative that will be great for the hotel industry. The kind of rates we offer through Get a Room, we can only offer on the day itself and this provides us with a mobile platform to pass these rates directly on to the public.”

Nobbs is one of the first graduates from New Zealand’s first Business secondary School, at Onehunga High School. Falkenstein himself is impressed with the application:

“As part of the Business School, Veronica qualified for a 10 day intensive learning programme in New York, with the intent of opening student eyes to the fact that Kiwis can do anything. Veronica has certainly opened her eyes with this excellent application – a young Kiwi coming up with an idea to solve a real business problem.”

“Get a Room has the potential to grow into a very successful business, both in New Zealand and overseas.”

Nobbs studied at AUT, doing a Bachelor of Business, and spent six months studying in Budapest, having received an Education New Zealand study abroad award, and the AUT University International Exchange Scholarship.

As an introductory offer, Get a Room is giving away a $15 free credit for anyone who ‘likes’ them on Facebook. It is also running a competition for free tickets and accommodation to the Rugby World Cup Finals for all those that download and register on the app. Further details can be found at www.facebook.com/nzgetaroom.

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