Booking.com Going For a Shock And Awe Strategy in U.S. With Huge Expansion
Photo Caption: Darren Huston, now the Priceline CEO, speaking at a World Travel & Tourism Council event in April 2013.
Skift Take
An outsider might think the U.S. online travel market is already saturated, but Booking.com is proving that there is plenty of room to grow in the U.S., and competitors are feeling the heat.
Booking.com, the world's largest hotel booking site with 425,000 hotels and other lodging choices, says the U.S. became its largest destination country in 2013, and it is ramping up its efforts stateside.
Expedia is the largest online travel agency in the U.S., but Booking.com is making market share gains, and is hungry for more.
Priceline CEO Darren Huston, speaking during the company's fourth quarter earnings call February 20, said Booking.com has 1,000 people working in the U.S., staffs offices all over the country and plans on expanding them, and has signed just about all of the U.S.-based hotel chains.
Those 1,000 Booking.com employs account for about 55% of the Priceline Group's employees in the U.
