Master for Webs

Hotwire is expected to announce Wednesday a major expansion of its travel offerings, as the fledgling Web site takes aim at much bigger rival Priceline.com Inc. Hotwire (www.hotwire.com), which is backed by six of the largest U.S. airlines and private investment concern Texas Pacific Group, is expected to announce that it has begun offering international air tickets from 19 overseas carriers, along with the eight U.S. airlines that already peddle domestic tickets on the site. The site last month added 1,500 U.S. hotels for room reservations in 25 major cities, and Wednesday is expected to announce that rental-car suppliers Hertz Corp. and Budget Group Inc.'s Budget Rent a Car Corp., have joined its supplier

roster with cars at 200 locations at major airports in the U.S. In its first 100 days of sales, San Francisco-based Hotwire sold 100,000 tickets, said its chief executive, Karl Peterson. The service now has one million registered users, and its transaction volumes are "ahead of plan," he added. Hotwire's current numbers are a drop in the bucket compared with those of Priceline, the leading though unprofitable purveyor of the travel industry's so-called distressed inventory. Priceline, which launched its service in 1998, sold 1.29 million airline tickets and 1.1 million hotel-room nights and rental-car days in the fiscal third quarter. Hotwire thinks it has built a more user-friendly travel discount mall. Priceline uses a "name your own price" formula. Customers must bid for the travel products, and Priceline either accepts or rejects those bids. If a bid is accepted, the customer can't change his mind and his credit card is immediately billed. By contrast, on Hotwire, customers explain what they want and receive a price quotation, and then have 30 minutes to accept the offer or withdraw. Neither Hotwire nor Priceline reveals which airline, time of day of travel or flight routing until the customer has paid, and neither awards frequent-flier miles. Both are aimed at price-conscious leisure travelers. Hotwire's new foreign airline partners, which include Singapore Airlines, Lufthansa, Virgin Atlantic Airways and Brazil's Varig, among other leading airlines, bring its total airline stable to 27. Priceline has 34 airline partners, 6,000 participating hotels and a customer base of eight million. It also sells new cars, long-distance phone services and home mortgages through its site.

Leave a Reply

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

Submit Comment