Orbitz TRAVELER UPDATE

Travel sites provide only a small amount of fragmented information about day-of-travel conditions, and this was an opportunity that Orbitz seized by creating a hub for its OrbitzTLC care features. Traveler Update assembled the real-time conditions provided by experts (flight status, weather, airport conditions, traffic, terminal Wi-Fi) as well as those provided by travelers (updates on nearly anyting, including security wait lines, good parking lots, favorite restaurants, helpful diaper-changing stations, etc.).

Customers could report on what they saw, to provide updates and tips through mobile-phone SMS messages and smart devices. In aggregate, this provided fellow travelers with insight to move quickly and avoid obstacles en route to the airport. These also nicely complimented the high-level airline status messaging that Orbitz had long provided. Monthly promotions rewarded customers who posted some of the most helpful and most frequent updates.

Subsequently, with no further marketing spending or site integration, the section lost most traffic. To compensate for fewer new updates, Orbitz focused on the helpfulness of updates rather than their timeliness.

Orbitz Worldwide  ·  2007-2008

Proof of concept: Doug Breaker  ·  Creative direction: Andrew Day  ·  Design: Andrew Day, David Dillon, Dan Gentle  ·  Information architecture: Sarah Grubb  ·  Engineering: Tim Michaud, Joe Monahan