LateRooms.com is a hotel reservations website providing accommodation throughout the UK, Europe and the rest of the world. It allows both independent and chain hotel rooms to be booked online or by telephone, up to a year in advance or minutes before check-in.
LateRooms.com offers a choice of over 44,000 hotels[1] and the website receives an average of 231,758 unique visitors daily from both business and leisure bookers.
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LateRooms.com was launched in Salford, Greater Manchester, in 1999 by brothers Steve, Paul and Tony Walsh. The site originally started as a simple directory listing hotels, but in 2002 moved to enable users to book hotels online (some hotels require a telephone bookings through LateRooms.com). In December 2006, the company was bought by First Choice Holidays plc in a deal worth between £108 million and £120 million.[2] September 2007 saw First Choice Holidays plc merge with TUI Travel plc to form the TUI Travel Group[3] that LateRooms.com is still a part of.
Following continued growth, in 2010 LateRooms.com moved to a new head office at The Peninsula building in Manchester, along with sister companies AsiaRooms.com and Hotels-London.co.uk.[4]
A large amount of LateRooms.com’s properties are in the United Kingdom and Europe. However, its stock is growing across other continents, particularly in Asia where nearly 9,000 hotels are available.[5]
The company is based in Manchester, England and has offices in Milan, Palma, Majorca and Sydney, Australia.
The LateRooms.com website is available in five languages (English, French, Italian, German and Spanish).
Hotels and accommodation providers use LateRooms.com as a vehicle to help sell their empty rooms.
Any hotel can join LateRooms.com and the company works independently from any hotel groups.
In common with other hotel reservation websites LateRooms.com runs an affiliate marketing program, allowing third party websites to promote their service and pays a commission on any bookings generated to the affiliate.
Hotels are responsible for entering their own rates, availability and information onto the website and all payments are made direct to the hotels. LateRooms.com generates revenue by charging the hotels commission for any bookings made through its website or call centre.
LateRooms.com provides a vast range of accommodation. Some of the property types available on the website include B&Bs, budget hotels, Spa hotels, luxury hotels, Riads, Paradores and Agriturismos.
Although the name suggests that LateRooms.com is a specialist in late availability, bookings can also be made up to 12 months in advance. Bookings are secured by credit or debit card on LateRooms.com but payment is made to the hotel on departure or at the time of booking, depending on the hotel’s policy. Accommodation can be booked online or by phone in English, French, Italian, German or Spanish.
LateRooms.com has over one million hotel guest reviews on its site.[6] The company’s policy only allows guests who have booked through LateRooms.com and completed their stay to leave a guest review.