More people can book party buses on Uber now

Uber is partnering with travel booking firm Viator and restaurant reservation company OpenTable so consumers can book more experiences on its core app. 

The partnerships are part of a broader expansion of ride and delivery features announced Monday that are framed around making the holiday season more convenient.

“The holiday does come with a level of hecticness,” says Uber’s Chief Product Officer, Sundeep Jain. “There’s logistics to manage if you’re traveling from one place to another or there’s logistics to manage if someone’s even visiting you. There’s gifts you have to give somebody, you have to fight lines and retail stores to buy the right thing for the right person, so it can also be a time that’s a little bit hectic.”

Consumers are now able to send multiple packages at once to different destinations as part of its courier service called Uber Connect. With Eats, shoppers can now send food and other goods to friends, and have the option to schedule gift cards ahead of time. It’s also launching a dedicated “Holiday Shop” that will highlight a curated selection of grocery, convenience, and alcohol items for delivery. 

Uber is also expanding its charter service to a number of new cities, which allows customers to book party buses, passenger vans, and coach buses directly within the app. Uber Travel, the feature launched earlier this year that lets users link their reservation confirmations from email directly to the app, is additionally now available in more than 10,000 cities globally, it says. 

“We really made the experiences richer both along the ‘go’ categories as well as the ‘get’ categories and enabled seamless movement between them,” Jain says.

Uber declined to share numbers on the adoption of its travel and charter services so far, but said it’s seen “pretty good” engagement. Product expansions could lead to growth for its $10 per month subscription service, Uber One, as consumers look to save more money. Those subscription services have been a key focus for the company, as some shoppers will be enticed to spend more on the app after subscribing thanks to the discounts. 

Uber One is still only in the early days of operations. The service, which launched a year ago, had 10 million subscribers as of its third quarter. The company declined to say its target range for subscribers. As part of Monday’s release, Uber One is launching in France, Spain, Japan, Taiwan, and Chile. 

Uber says that consumers are still traveling and planning trips, as indicated in their latest earnings report, but are continuously focused on affordability. That’s where things like its membership comes in, and Uber expects it to keep growing. Jain, who has honed his strategy toward building more of a “super app” concept, plans to keep innovating at either the same or even a faster pace in the new year, as many other tech firms cut back.

“I haven’t seen a change in consumer behavior that would warrant us pivoting our roadmap to try to build something else,” Jain says. “It feels like a pretty good rhythm.”