Hotwire hopes its new mobile play will make it relevant again
May 30, 2014
It’s been a tough couple of years for Expedia’s Hotwire, which has seen Priceline, with its copycat Express Deals product and advertising blitz, eat into Hotwire’s market share. But don’t count it out. Expedia has been putting a lot of offline advertising money into Hotwire, and as it pledged, is focusing on mobile.
Hotwire has been making strides and the business should stabilize in 2014, according to Expedia Inc. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.
In addition to more aggressive TV advertising in recent months, now we can see what Hotwire’s been up to in its turnaround strategy as this month it unveiled significant changes to its iOS and Android apps, enabling logged-in users to book a room from the home screen with a relatively few number of taps.
Like Priceline’s Express deals, Hotwire shows discounted hotel rates (up to 60% off published rates) up-front in a given section of a city without disclosing the name of the hotel until after the booking is completed.
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