The US travel site Orbitz debuts today a set of tools on a new "Labs" page, which lets consumers search for travel information using charts, heat maps, and other interactive methods.
One tool allows consumers to search historic hotel rates by booking date as a way to forecast when to buy. For instance, if you want to book a room in the US for April, the historically cheapest time to make a booking is a month-and-a-half in advance, according to the company's data.
Orbitz Labs "Big Game Flight Finder" and "Big Game Hotel Finder" tools are aimed at helping Americans book last-minute travel at destinations holding major sporting events.
Big data at work
Another example is of an animated map that shows you the typical daily flight searches on Orbitz.
Similarly a tool allows consumers to search historic hotel rates by booking date as a way to forecast when they should buy. For instance, if you want to book a room in the US for April, the historically cheapest time to make a booking is six weeks in advance, according to the company's data.
A hotel rate heat map offers a more innovative way of sussing out what time of year to find cheapest rates.
The Orbitz Labs "Big Game Flight Finder" and "Big Game Hotel Finder" tools are aimed at helping Americans book last-minute travel at destinations holding major sporting events.
In a statement Roger Liew, chief technology officer, said:
"The Orbitz Labs features that strike a chord with our customers and enhance their shopping experience are ones we will incorporate into the Orbitz mobile and desktop booking engines and the tools that consumers do not engage with will be refined through new and interesting features that our engineers are eager to test with travelers."
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