Orbitz Will Automatically Show You Pricer Hotels… If You’re on a Mac

Mac users are often stereotyped as form over function design queens, eschewing reasonably priced PCs for the latest and greatest offerings from Apple, despite an unjustifiably high price tag — or so say Windows and Linux users.

Travel aggregator Orbitz admits to being guilty as hell of buying into the assumption, but insists that data backs up the decision. Via Consumerist, the Wall Street Journal explores the somewhat amusing differentiation in marketing between that aimed at Mac users and that aimed at users of PCs.

Mac marketshare is small but growing — I seem to recall the 6% of users figure being batted around for many years, but sources day that as many as 10% of users are Macs nowadays. This is undoubtedly due in part, despite Apple’s high prices for basic equipments, down to the effect of iPods and later iPads indoctrinating new users into the cult of Mac.

According to Orbitz, marketing research within their company revealed that Mac users pay on average $20 to $30 more per night for hotels compared with their PC using counterparts, changing the way Orbitz presents listings to Mac users.

Mac users also tend to book the more expensive rooms in hotels, and when it comes to booking high-end properties, people on Macs are 40 to 50% more prone to opt for higher priced four and five-star hotels.

Orbitz’s CTO Roger Liew explains that the site isn’t gaming Mac users into picking the high-end stock, just that the data panned out that way:

“We had the intuition, and we were able to confirm it based on the data.”

Orbitz says that they are looking at applying the data to higher-end cars and flight seats as well.