“Orbitz Worldwide Inc. has found that people who use Apple Inc.’s Mac computers spend as much as 30% more a night on hotels, so the online travel agency is starting to show them different, and sometimes costlier, travel options than Windows visitors see,” Dana Mattioli reports for The Wall Street Journal. “The Orbitz effort, which is in its early stages, demonstrates how tracking people’s online activities can use even seemingly innocuous information—in this case, the fact that customers are visiting Orbitz.com from a Mac—to start predicting their tastes and spending habits. Orbitz executives confirmed that the company is experimenting with showing different hotel offers to Mac and PC visitors, but said the company isn’t showing the same room to different users at different prices. They also pointed out that users can opt to rank results by price.”
Mattioli reports, “Orbitz found Mac users on average spend $20 to $30 more a night on hotels than their PC counterparts, a significant margin given the site’s average nightly hotel booking is around $100, chief scientist Wai Gen Yee said. Mac users are 40% more likely to book a four- or five-star hotel than PC users, Mr. Yee said, and when Mac and PC users book the same hotel, Mac users tend to stay in more expensive rooms. ‘We had the intuition, and we were able to confirm it based on the data,’ Orbitz Chief Technology Officer Roger Liew said.”
“Apple users already stand out as big spenders. Nearly half of retailers in a recent study by Forrester Research and Shop.org said users of tablets—a large majority of which are iPads—tend to place bigger online orders than users of laptops or desktops. Shoppers on Apple devices like iPhones also outspend shoppers using Android or BlackBerry devices, accounting for half of all mobile purchases, according to International Business Machines, which tracks data from retailers,” Mattioli reports. “The average household income for adult owners of Mac computers is $98,560, compared with $74,452 for a PC owner, according to Forrester. Eventually, Orbitz may start to test if Mac users have identifiable preferences for car rentals and flight bookings. ‘It would be nice to say they book more Porsches, but at this point we’re only looking at hotels,’ Mr. Yee said.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: It’s a well-known fact that Mac users in particular and Apple product users in general are smarter and richer than Windows PC suffers and pretend iPhone/fake iPad cheapskates; just look at their computers, phones, and tablets (and check out our related articles below). We don’t need or even want to see a list of bedbug-infested fleabag motels. As long as you can choose to sort the results by price, we don’t see anything wrong with attempting to present results that might be better suited to the means and the taste – or lack thereof – of the individual user.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Wealthy smartphone users more likely to have iPhones; less likely to play games, tweet – April 2, 2012
U.S. Apple product users split evenly between Republicans and Democrats; Half of U.S. households own at least one Apple product – March 28, 2012
Mac users are more fashionable than Windows PC sufferers – March 1, 2012
Study: iPad users more likely to buy – and buy more – online than traditional PC users – September 29, 2011
iPhone users smarter, richer, less conservative than Android phone users – August 16, 2011
Apple iPhone users spend significantly more on their credit cards than non-iPhone users – November 5, 2010
Study: Apple iPhone users richer, younger, more productive than other so-called ‘smartphone’ users – June 12, 2009
Nielsen: Mac users are better educated and make more money than PC users – July 12, 2002
Shucks, I always thougth Windows users were smarter. They NEED to be smarter to figure out that discombobulated OS and have a semblance of productivity!
They can’t even figure out TCO, so they’re not too bright.
(Brought to you by Carl’s Jr.)
Not Sure!
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Only a matter of time until they start showing different users different prices for the same room, however, based on a “customer elasticity” rating derived from online profiling. I have a friend working on a project to do exactly this with credit card offers (same product, different rates – based not on risk but expected willingness to pay).
Oh, c’mon. No one is that devious and despicable. 🙂 But Fredo is right … it is only a matter of time.
I smell a law suit coming!
Discrimination?
Of course anyone can sue anyone for any reason, but I doubt much would come of such a thing in this case. All they did was change the initial presentation based on the type of OS. The users can still sort by price and they’re not offering the same room or package at a different price just offering different packages up front.
Class Action anyone?!
Fine with me. Just don’t jack the price up for me for similar/same accommodations because I use a Mac.
I’ll just go to the library to be a cheapskate 😉
This is not right. It is a form of discrimination. Anyone who uses the system should be given the opportunity to see the lowest priced options first. You many not even own the Mac you’re using.
You can sort by price. This ADDs options to Mac users..we still get the same list with the addition of better rooms/hotels. If anyone should be “mad”, it’s the windows users who aren’t getting all options.
But how can you be sure you’re getting the same info?
If you are that paranoid, enable the Develop menu in Safari and change the User Agent to Windows IE.
You do have the option to see the lowest price. You can sort by price and a lot of people do. It’s pretty easy to see how to sort by price too as it’s right on the side of the page. Anyone who has used Amazon or a similar site to shop for things would find it pretty easy to do.
In fact, I don’t know of anyone who would just take the initial offering unless it happened to be exactly what they were looking for already (i.e. some one with a huge disposable income who knows exactly what they want). Most everyone else is going to sort by price or some other factor that they require (location maybe?) before making a purchase.
it’s nothing new, amazon has been doing similar stuff for years. just search for ‘amazon price discrimination’ to see.
Just because I use apple products doesn’t mean I discount a value proposition. I have 2 travel related apps on my iPhone, motel6 and holes tonight. Steering me to a more expensive option just because I’m lumped in with a higher spending demographic seems to me to be disingenuous to the core function of Orbitz and is one of the reasons I haven’t used their services in quite some time. I ride my motorcycle cross country once or twice a year. After putting 500 to 700 miles per day on the road daily all I want is a nice clean clean comfortable room with free wifi and the occasional hot tub to soothe the muscles. I don’t need a huge gym with fancy equipment, I don’t even need spa services or 50% of the stuff offered by the high end chains because I’m usually not there long enough to take advantage of it and if I am I would stay at an Extended Stays America for a week or more. Of course if I’m going for business and the company is picking up the tab it’s a different story. I just think that the inflexibility of this Orbitz data mining model may cost them more profit opportunities than it will generate. If I have to wade through a site for an hour to find the absolute best deal on a room for the night I’m probably not going to invest a lot of my time on that site.
Immoral, true, but it isn’t even unethical much less illegal.
The analog equivalent would be any of a thousand antique stores and flea markets. Each customer is offered a different price, usually based solely on the customer’s apparent ability to pay and their intelligence/experience to negotiate a good deal.
We heavily cloistered (read as ignorant) Americans are unaware that the vast majority of the world’s retail is much more like a garage sale rather than a Walmart, with the American wealthy being the most clueless, gullible to outrageous pricing.
MDN = BLOWN TAKE!!
That’s great, until some genius starts to show Mac users higher prices for the same room, or goods, or services or whatever. That next step isn’t a very large one at all.
If they do, the Take will change accordingly.
Gee, nice spin, MDN, with your “MDN’s Take”!
this is why i haven’t used orbitz in years, they are a rip off. doing my own legwork i bought airline tickets to Colorado for $153 each way in first class seating straight from the airline.
luckily i used my Windows 7 Lenovo. i guess if i would have used my MBP they would have jacked up the price
“Dana Mattioli reports for The Wall Street Journal. “The Orbitz effort, which is in its early stages, demonstrates how tracking people’s online activities can use even seemingly innocuous information—in this case, the fact that customers are visiting Orbitz.com from a Mac—to start predicting their tastes and spending habits.”
Bullshit. Tracking online has nothing to do with it. A Mac can be IDd online without tracking cookies. Murdoch & Co are trying to gain acceptance for cyberstalking by Korporate Amerika. It’s an ongoing fight at the 3WC.
Businesses that wish a profile of users should ASK PERMISSION or ask the user to create a voluntary profile.
It’s just targeted advertising. Nothing new.
And let’s face it, when was the last time you bothered even looking at the bargain basement hotels?
I noticed this (more expensive options first rayher than proximity) when I booked hotels for a trip in May. I didn’t attribute it to my using a Mac though.
If I search using my old MS-DOS computer, will Orbitz list all the available park benches?
MDN states that Mac users are richer and smarter. Maybe, but spending more money for the same hotel room is about as stupid as one can get. The business community recognizes that anyone frivolous enough to spend money for a MacBook Air or new Retina MacBook Pro is gullible enough to spend more money than other people for the same hotel room.
Not what’s happening. Nobody is paying more for the same room.
All of you do yourself a favor and AVOID the overpriced tourist hotels. If you wanted an American hotel experience you could have stayed home.
Stay away from the tourist traps and stay at a nice mom & pop hotel or guesthouse a little off the beaten path. Stay away from the tourist oriented restaurants and put your best foot forward.
You might even meet some neat people and learn about the place you took that long plane ride to reach instead of traveling in the tourist bubble.
Agreed. I’ve been spending a lot of time in Alaska and there are some great places to stay there. A B&B in Homer (Halcyon Heights) was especially good (and they’re all Mac!). America has really great stuff to see but too many people travel out of the country never having seen so much of the great stuff here. And I don’t mind being considered an official classier group by the marketing people…as long as (it’s already been said) we don’t pay more for the same rooms!
orbits needs to go away, just like Facebook… bye bye…