How Uber plans to become the new travel giant

Gradually, Uber expands the foundations of its empire. If we know the American firm well in the field of VTC and home deliveries, it wants to expand its influence in the field of travel. As revealed by the American magazine Travel and entertainment the company even intends to become an indispensable tool by allowing restaurant and entertainment reservations to be made directly through its app.

To achieve this, the platform has partnered with American website OpenTable, which specializes in online restaurant table reservations, and Viator, a Tripadvisor company that allows you to book tours and other attractions. These two companies have thus been integrated into the Uber Explore functionality introduced in March. The latter, which operates in several cities in the United States, Mexico or Madrid, allows users to discover recommended places according to several categories, such as nightlife, shows or even restaurants. These new services should be extended to other areas soon.

“Beyond the Journey”

With Uber Explore, the American company therefore wants to “take [ses] customers outside of travel”, as he said in a press release. So it’s similar to the experience pioneered by Airbnb, which offers, in addition to an abundance of accommodations, the ability to book local events. This isn’t Uber’s first foray into the travel industry. In May, it introduced Uber Travel, known in France for its Travel tab, which offers to import travel-related emails (hotel reservations, flights, etc.) and then plan routes.

So many features that can make Uber one of the world’s leading leisure and travel apps. “What we want to highlight now is this one-stop shop concept where the user can avail maximum offers through our app.Frank Monsaure, Business Director of France Uber, told TOM.travel.

And Uber doesn’t intend to stop in such a good way. Still under the Uber Travel banner, the company launched a test in the UK in August with a new feature that lets you buy train or bus tickets directly through the app. For this, the juggernaut has partnered with booking site Omio. It’s enough to make Uber a future major competitor in the booking application arena.