Letter to our customers

Orbitz Worldwide CEO Barney Harford

 By Barney Harford, CEO, Orbitz Worldwide

On Monday night the Wall Street Journal published an article talking about some of the things we’re doing at Orbitz to make the hotels we show to customers as relevant as possible.  The article focused on just one of many different factors we use to help make the best possible hotel recommendations to our customers—the differing hotel preferences of Mac and PC users.  

We know how overwhelming it can be to have to choose from hundreds of hotel options.  We’re focused on helping our customers find the best deals on the most relevant hotels.  Every day customers conduct millions of searches on our websites.  We’ve observed that Mac users are more likely to book 4 or 5 star hotels, and that families traveling with kids often book different hotels than adults traveling without kids.  These are just two examples of the many insights we consider as we work to improve our hotel recommendation algorithms.

Unfortunately the WSJ chose initially to hide the full story behind a subscription pay wall, so many readers and bloggers were initially reacting to an attention-grabbing yet confusing headline and a snippet of the story that didn’t include the most important points about what we’re doing.  In particular the key quote “Orbitz executives… said the company isn’t showing the same room to different users at different prices” was hidden from non-subscribers because the WSJ required readers to pay in order to read the full article.

Rest assured, we do not charge Mac users more than PC users for the same hotel.  And we don’t limit the choices available to any of our customers.

At Orbitz we’re passionate about using technology to dramatically improve the experience of searching and booking travel.  We’re dedicated to making it easier for you, our customers, to book better trips.  We thank you for the trust you place in us each time you travel.

Barney Harford
CEO, Orbitz Worldwide

Tagged: Hotels