Interview: OpenTable CEO on How Its Game Changes Within Priceline
Photo Credit: OpenTable CEO Matthew Roberts. OpenTable / Eric Millette
Skift Take
Given the consumer base of sister companies Booking.com, Agoda and Kayak, OpenTable now has the chance to expand beyond its traditional local orientation into a dining app for travelers, as well. Some of its learnings and technologies can also apply to hotels and tours and activities.
As CEO of OpenTable, Matthew Roberts led the dining reservations' company through a 2009 IPO, its $2.6 billion sale to the Priceline Group in July, and now he's helping to orchestrate the company's expansion from a primarily local-oriented restaurant-transactions company into a global dining experiences company that hopes to be front of mind for travelers in the U.S. and internationally.
As the largest online dining reservations company in the world and with operations in six countries, consider where OpenTable stands: It has relationships with some 32,000 restaurants, powers reservations for nearly 600 online partners, and facilitates the seating of more than 15 million restaurant patrons per month. OpenTable did $190 million in revenue in 2013.
In the grand scheme of things, when you consider how large the restaurant industry is, and how backward much of it is in terms of technology, there is a gigantic potential upside.
As OpenTable and sister brands within the Priceline Gr
