Hotels.com, L.P. is a global 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 other types of commercial lodging. Hotels.com was established in 1991 as the Hotel Reservations Network (HRN). In 2001, it became part of Expedia, Inc. and in 2002, changed its name to Hotels.com. The company is operated by Hotels.com LP, a

limited partnership A limited partnership (LP) is a type of partnership with general partners, who have a right to manage the business, and limited partners, who have no right to manage the business but have only limited liability for its debts. Limited partnership ...

subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company, or daughter company is a company (law), company completely or partially owned or controlled by another company, called the parent company or holding company, which has legal and financial control over the subsidia ...

located in

Dallas, Texas Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...

, in the United States.

History

Hotels.com was established in 1991 by

David Litman David Litman was an American-French, born in New York in 1957, he lived in the UK from 1967 to 1975. He attended Sussex House School from 1968 to 1971 and City of London School from 1971 to 1975. He is a graduate of Cornell University (1979) and C ...

and Robert Diener as the Hotel Reservations Network (HRN), providing hotel booking via a toll-free phone number in the United States. In 2001, the company was acquired by USA Networks Inc (USAI) which also acquired a controlling interest in Expedia, an online travel booking company. After buying the domain name for approximately US$11 million, HRN changed its name in 2002 to Hotels.com and launched the offline brand 1-800-2-Hotels as well as allowing hotel bookings on line. There followed a period of rapid international expansion with 29 sites added over the next two years. In 2003, USAI was renamed InterActiveCorp (IAC). In 2005 IAC separated its travel business under the name Expedia Inc. Hotels.com then became an operating company of Expedia Inc. In 2011, the site launched an

iPad The iPad is a brand of tablet computers developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple that run the company's mobile operating systems iOS and later iPadOS. The IPad (1st generation), first-generation iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010. ...

application and updated its mobile phone product on

iPhone The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...

and

Android Android most commonly refers to: *Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), a mobile operating system primarily developed by Google * Android TV, a operating system developed ...

. On December 1, 2016, Hotels.com took over Venere.com (another Expedia owned company). ;U.S. disability rights infringement In May 2007, Hotels.com was subject to a

class action A class action is a form of lawsuit. Class Action may also refer to: * ''Class Action'' (film), 1991, starring Gene Hackman and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio * Class Action (band), a garage house band * "Class Action" (''Teenage Robot''), a 2002 e ...

complaint (''Smith v. Hotels.com L.P.'', California Superior Court, Alameda County, Case No. RG07327029) brought against them for “ongoing discrimination against persons with mobility disabilities who desire to, but cannot, use Hotels.com’s worldwide reservation network to make reservations for hotel rooms”. The company denied the accusation and opposed the action, but was found guilty on one count of infringing California's

Unruh Civil Rights Act The Unruh Civil Rights Act (colloquially the "Unruh Act") is an expansive 1959 California law that prohibits California businesses from engaging in unlawful discrimination against all persons (consumers) within California's jurisdiction, where the ...

, and on one count in violation of Unfair Competition Law. It was agreed that the company would provide suitable accessibility information about hotels sold on its website. ;Privacy concerns In February 2019,

TechCrunch TechCrunch is an American global online newspaper focusing on topics regarding high tech, high-tech and Startup company, startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. I ...

reported that the Hotels.com mobile app in the

Apple App Store The App Store is an app marketplace developed and maintained by Apple, for mobile apps on its iOS and iPadOS operating systems. The store allows users to browse and download approved apps developed within Apple's iOS SDK. Apps can be download ...

was using session-replay functionality from Israeli firm

Glassbox Glassbox is an Israeli software company. It sells session-replay analytics software and services. History As of October 2018, Glassbox had raised US$32.5 million of capital funding. In exchange for investing in Glassbox, Washington, DC, equity ...

, to record users' activities and send the data to Expedia servers without users' informed consent, compromising users' privacy and contravening the rules of the iOS App Store.

Loyalty program

The first loyalty program for Hotels.com was called "Hotels.com Rewards" (formerly "Welcome Rewards") and rolled out across multiple countries from 2008 to 2011. On July 6, 2023, Hotels.com replaced Hotels.com Rewards with One Key. The new program decreased rewards by 80 percent, including bookings paid in advance under the terms of the prior program. The website Frequent Miler criticized these changes as an unusually large devaluation of the program not comparable to any other loyalty program change in the hospitality industry for a company not undergoing bankruptcy proceedings.

Hotel Price Index

Starting in 2004, the site has published a twice-yearly review of international hotel room price trends called the Hotels.com Hotel Price Index. It is based on the prices paid per room by its customers using a weighted average based on the number of rooms sold in each of the markets in which it operates. Information includes notable price changes and comparisons between destinations, hotel types, and other price-related analyses for the previous six months. The Hotel Price Index is published both digitally and in print, and is aimed at journalists, the media, and hoteliers as part of its public relations.

Advertising

Ed Helms Edward Parker Helms (born January 24, 1974) is an American actor, musician and comedian. From 2002 to 2006, he was a correspondent on Comedy Central's '' The Daily Show with Jon Stewart''. He played paper salesman Andy Bernard in the NBC sit ...

voiced the character "Smart" in Hotels.com advertisements. In 2012, the character was changed from

clay animation Claymation, sometimes called clay animation or plasticine animation, is one of many forms of stop-motion animation. Each animated piece, either character or background, is "deformable"—made of a malleable substance, usually plasticine cl ...

to CGI. The company's

advertising slogan Advertising slogans are short phrases used in advertising campaigns to generate publicity and unify a company's marketing strategy. The phrases may be used to attract attention to a distinctive product feature or reinforce a company's brand. Etymo ...

was originally "Smart. So Smart" before being changed to "Be Smart. Book Smart". In 2014, Smart was eventually replaced by " Captain Obvious" who is portrayed by actor Brandon Moynihan. Captain Obvious makes self-evident comments with the aim of communicating that Hotels.com is the obvious choice. The campaign was devised by the ad firm

Crispin Porter + Bogusky Crispin (also formerly known as Crispin Porter + Bogusky), a member of publicly traded MDC Partners, is an American advertising agency that employed around 150 people. It was founded in 1965 by Sam Crispin. Crispin then became partners with ...

. Moynihan said in an interview "Hotels.com has a great self awareness and they're not afraid to push the envelope with the crazy stuff I get to do as Captain Obvious". Notable advertisements include one where he runs for president, a ''

La La Land ''La La Land'' is a 2016 American musical romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Damien Chazelle. It stars Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone as a struggling jazz pianist and an aspiring actress who meet and fall in love while pursuing ...

'' inspired ad and an ad where Captain Obvious meets his future self. In 2018, Captain Obvious featured in

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

ad blocking Ad blocking (or ad filtering) is a software capability for blocking or altering online advertising in a History of the web browser, web browser, an Application software, application or a network. This may be done using browser extensions or othe ...

campaign. In 2019, Captain Obvious appeared as a DJ in an episode of ''

Four Weddings and a Funeral ''Four Weddings and a Funeral'' is a 1994 British romantic comedy film directed by Mike Newell. It is the first of several films by screenwriter Richard Curtis to star Hugh Grant, and follows the adventures of Charles (Grant) and his circle of ...

''. Starting in the 2018-19 season, Hotels.com became the official global sponsor of

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (UCL) is an annual club association football competition organised by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that is contested by List of top-division football clubs in UEFA countries, top-divisio ...

and the

UEFA Super Cup The UEFA Super Cup is an annual super cup Association football, football match organised by UEFA and contested by the winners of the two main European club competitions: the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League. The competition's offic ...

along with

Expedia Expedia Inc. is an online travel agency owned by Expedia Group, based in Seattle. The website and mobile app can be used to book airline tickets, hotel reservations, car rentals, cruise ships, and vacation packages. Expedia.com was launched on ...

. In December 2020, Hotels.com signed a partnership with the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada). The NBA is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Ca ...

, and it was named as the Official Travel Partner of the NBA.

References

External links