Interview: Expedia’s Comeback CEO on What It Will Take To Win
Photo Credit: Expedia Inc. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi believes his company can win by hitting singles and doubles rather than relying on homeruns. Expedia Inc.
Skift Take
The online travel duopoly, The Priceline Group and Expedia Inc., remains in place. But as history and Expedia's turnaround show, the pecking order isn't necessarily going to stay this way over the long term.
In recent years, quarter after quarter, as the Priceline Group was thumping Expedia Inc. in terms of growth, you had to wonder sometimes how Expedia Inc. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi was hanging onto his job.
It would have been extremely interesting during this period to eavesdrop on the conversations between Khosrowshahi and controlling shareholder, Barry Diller, about the company's performance.
But it's a different story these days for Expedia Inc. and Khosrowshahi, too, as the company, after investing heavily in a multi-year project to build and integrate its brands into a global technology platform, and fueled by organic growth and a slew of acquisitions over the last two years, including Trivago, Wotif, Auto Escape Group, Travelocity, and soon-to-be Orbitz Worldwide, is in the midst of a turnaround.
In a Skift interview about Expedia Inc.'s comeback story, Khosrowshahi talks about some of the "tough days" of the past and how he and his team "walked through the fire together."
