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Hotwire.com

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Hotwire is a discount travel website that offers low-prices on airfare, hotel, rental car, and vacation packages by selling off unsold travel inventory at a discounted price.

Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Hotwire, Inc. is an operating company of Expedia, Inc. (NASDAQ : EXPE). Expedia also operates Hotels.com, ClassicVacations.com, and TripAdvisor.com.

History

Hotwire was launched in 2000 by Eric Grosse, Karl Peterson, Gregg Brockway, and Spencer Rascoff and by six major airlines: American, Northwest, Continental, America West (now US Airways), and United. They were funded by a leading private equity firm, Texas Pacific Group (TPG) with an initial $75 million investment[1]. Prior to its formal launch, it was codenamed Purple Demon[2].

In September 2003, IAC/InterActiveCorp announced its acquisition of Hotwire.com for $663 million dollars. (Expedia spun off from IAC in 2005.) Hotwire's co-partners under IAC included Citysearch, Evite , HSN, Ticketmaster, LendingTree, RealEstate.com, Entertainment.com, and Match.com[3].

In 2007, J.D. Power and Associates Independent Travel Web Site Satisfaction StudySM recognized Hotwire for ranking "Highest in Customer Satisfaction for Independent Travel Web Sites" for the second year in a row.[4] In 2009, they were given the award for the third time in a row the calendar year 2008.

Hotwire first launched with opaque airline tickets. They started selling opaque hotel and rental cars a few months later. Package offerings started in 2003. In 2004, Hotwire began to offer select retail travel products. In June 2007, Hotwire removed all airfare booking fees.

Means of Operation

When hotel rooms, airline seats, or rental cars go unsold, travel companies use Hotwire to fill them. Hotwire does not identify the participating companies until after the purchaser has paid so as not to directly compete with regular retail sales of the travel partners. This sales model is known as "opaque." According to the Hotwire web site, they deal with brand-name travel companies exclusively. This is so Hotwire partners can clear out their supply and sell inventory that would otherwise go unsold. Hotwire reveals the prices and the travel dates of all their products upfront and does not sell via a 'bidding' or 'auction' model.

Management

Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Hotwire, Inc. is an operating company of Expedia, Inc. (Nasdaq: EXPE). Expedia also operates Hotels.com, ClassicVacations.com, and TripAdvisor.

Hotwire's first CEO was Karl Peterson, one of Hotwire's four founding members. Since 2006, Hotwire has been overseen by Hotwire's 2004-2006 CFO Eric Grosse, another one of Hotwire's four founding members. Grosse is a graduate of Harvard Business School. In January 2009, Eric Grosse became the CEO/President of Expedia Worldwide and Clem Bason took over as President of the Hotwire Group. [5] [6]

Hotwire operates with one General Manager and six Vice Presidents on its management team. Hotwire began with 4 employees, and then grew to 80 within months. Currently, Hotwire has 210 employees.

See also

References

  1. ^ "Hotwire Launch to Provide Yet Another Way to Offload Cheap Inventory". Retrieved 2000-09-08. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  2. ^ "Can Purple Demon avoid Orbitz errors?". Retrieved 2000-07-05. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  3. ^ "InterActiveCorp grabs onto Hotwire". News.com. Retrieved 2003-09-22.
  4. ^ "J.D. Power and Associates Ranks Hotwire.com Top Travel Site for Second Consecutive Year". MSN Money. Retrieved 2008-01-23.
  5. ^ "Clem Bason press release".
  6. ^ "Hotwire Management".
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