Alexa Can Book Hotels Now Through Kayak

Amazon’s digital personal assistant Alexa now has support for more than 15,000 “Skills,” that’s what Amazon calls the features that the assistant has. Alexa can call you an Uber, control your smart home devices or check your bank account balance on command. It can also do so much more, such as booking you a hotel room through Kayak.

The Kayak skill for Amazon Alexa was first launched last year. Users could use the skill to ask Alexa to search for flights, hotels, and rental cars. The skill has now been updated to enable users to actually book hotel rooms by simply giving a voice command to Alexa.

Those who have an Alexa-powered device, such as Amazon’s Echo devices, can sync their existing or create a new kayak account and then enable the Kayak skill in the Alexa app and link their account.

Once the account is linked, users can give Alexa commands like “Alexa, ask KAYAK to book me a hotel room in Boston” to find and book a room. Alexa will return a bookable option and then use the linked Kayak account to confirm the reservation.

The actual booking transaction will be handled by one of Kayak’s partners. All bookable inventory available to Alexa comes from Booking.com and Priceline.com. Those companies process the payment and also handle customer service.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Gadgets
Tags: Alexa, Amazon