Hotwire is a travel website that offers airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, and vacation packages. It operates by selling off unsold travel inventory at discounted prices. The company is headquartered in

San Francisco, CA San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

, Hotwire, Inc. is an operating company of the

Expedia Group Expedia Group, Inc. is an American online travel shopping company for consumer and small business travel. Its websites, which are primarily travel fare aggregators and travel metasearch engines, include Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Vrbo (previous ...

, which also operates the website ClassicVacations,

Expedia Expedia Inc. is an online travel agency owned by Expedia Group, an American online travel shopping company based in Seattle. The website and mobile app can be used to book airline tickets, hotel reservations, car rentals, cruise ships, and vacat ...

Hotels.com Hotels.com is a website for booking hotel rooms online and by telephone. The company has 85 websites in 34 languages, and lists over 325,000 hotels in approximately 19,000 locations. Its inventory includes hotels and B&Bs, and some condos and oth ...

Orbitz Orbitz.com is a travel fare aggregator website and travel metasearch engine. The website is owned by Orbitz Worldwide, Inc., a subsidiary of Expedia Group. It is headquartered in the Citigroup Center, Chicago, Illinois. Background Origina ...

Travelocity Travelocity.com is an online travel agency owned by Expedia Group. It has 12.4 million monthly unique visitors, making it the third most popular website owned by Expedia Group, after Expedia.com and Hotels.com. One of the pioneers of web-based ...

and Egencia.

History

Hotwire was launched in 2000, by Karl Peterson, Eric Grosse, Gregg Brockway, and Spencer Rascoff. Initial funding came by founding partner

Texas Pacific Group TPG Inc., previously known as Texas Pacific Group and TPG Capital, is an American investment company based in Fort Worth, Texas. The private equity firm is focused on leveraged buyouts and growth capital. TPG manages investment funds in growth ...

(TPG), a leading private equity firm that Karl Peterson used to work for, that invested an initial $75 million into Hotwire. Hotwire first offered tickets from six major airlines, that also invested into Hotwire's launch: American, Northwest (now

Delta Delta commonly refers to: * Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), a letter of the Greek alphabet * River delta, at a river mouth * D ( NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta") * Delta Air Lines, US * Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19 Delta may also ...

Continental Continental may refer to: Places * Continent, the major landmasses of Earth * Continental, Arizona, a small community in Pima County, Arizona, US * Continental, Ohio, a small town in Putnam County, US Arts and entertainment * ''Continental'' ( ...

(now

United United may refer to: Places * United, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community * United, West Virginia, an unincorporated community Arts and entertainment Films * ''United'' (2003 film), a Norwegian film * ''United'' (2011 film), a BBC Two f ...

America West America West Airlines was a major American airline, founded in 1981, with service commencing in 1983, and having reached US$1 billion in annual revenue in 1989, headquartered in Tempe, Arizona. At the time of its acquisition of US Airways, Americ ...

(now American), United, and

US Airways US Airways (formerly USAir) was a major United States airline that operated from 1937 until its merger with American Airlines in 2015. It was originally founded in Pittsburgh as a mail delivery airline called All American Aviation, which soon ...

(now American). Prior to its formal launch, Hotwire was codenamed Purple Demon. In September 2003,

IAC/InterActiveCorp IAC Inc. is an American holding company that owns brands across 100 countries, mostly in media and Internet. The company is incorporated under Delaware General Corporation Law and headquartered in New York City. Joey Levin, who previously led t ...

announced its acquisition of Hotwire.com for $663 million. In 2004, an internet research firm estimated that through cross-advertising between Hotwire and Expedia, IAC was able to reach a total of an additional 1.5 million unique visitors to both websites monthly. Hotwire first launched with

opaque Opacity or opaque may refer to: * Impediments to (especially, visible) light: ** Opacities, absorption coefficients ** Opacity (optics), property or degree of blocking the transmission of light * Metaphors derived from literal optics: ** In lingu ...

airline tickets. The company started selling opaque hotels 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.

Company affairs

Leadership

Karl Peterson, one of Hotwire's four founding members, served as Hotwire's first CEO. In 2006, Hotwire was overseen by Founder and CFO (2004-2006) Eric Grosse. In January 2009, Eric Grosse became President of Expedia Worldwide and Clem Bason took over as President of the Hotwire Group. In 2013 Clem left the company and Henrik Kjellberg became President of hotwire.com, after joining from Expedia Affiliate Network, also as President. Hotwire is managed by president Neha Parikh. 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 over 300 employees.

Customer and revenue structure

As of 2019, the company reported more than 9.5 million unique visitors and 91 million pageviews per month, with a main audience (60%) aged 25-54 years old and 52% of visitors being male. In 2019, Hotwire's expected revenue was US$ 35 million. As a subsidiary brand of the

, revenues for Hotwire have not been independently published.

Products

Hotwire's products are based on online traffic and feature the main categories airline travel, car rental services, hotel reservation and vacation packages.

Operations

When hotel rooms, airline seats, or rental cars go unsold, they are filled by travel companies through companies like Hotwire. 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 an "opaque". According to the Hotwire website, they deal with brand-name travel companies exclusively. This strategy allows Hotwire partners to 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. Hotwire also offers a set of open travel APIs that can be used in travel applications.

Awards

In 2007,

J.D. Power and Associates J.D. Power is an American consumer research, data, and analytics firm based in Troy, Michigan. The company was founded in 1968 by James David Power III. It conducts surveys of customer satisfaction, product quality, and buyer behavior for the au ...

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. In 2014, the company received Travel Weekly's Silver Magellan Award for their mobile app.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hotwire.Com Expedia Group American travel websites American companies established in 2000 Transport companies established in 2000 Internet properties established in 2000 2003 mergers and acquisitions Online travel agencies Companies based in San Francisco