Skift Take
As their contract expiration deadline looms, Hyatt and Expedia are maneuvering for position with Hyatt property owners. The new Hyatt-Booking.com agreement gives Hyatt some leverage but it likely wouldn't fully make up all the ground if the chain goes completely dark on Expedia.
Hyatt and Booking.com quietly signed a new and restructured distribution agreement in early June about a year short of the prior agreement's expiration as the U.S.-based hotel chain seeks leverage in its contentious negotiations with Expedia Inc., Skift has learned exclusively.
Hyatt, according to multiple sources, was reluctant to publicize the new pact with Booking.com because the chain didn't want to further aggravate Expedia during negotiations, but with a July 31 deadline looming, apparently it is time to shake things up.
Some inside Hyatt believe that Expedia is being overly contentious and playing dirty by making direct pitches to Hyatt property owners about the perils of a prospective lack of an Expedia-Hyatt corporate-wide agreement, if that scenario comes to be.
On the other hand, it might be pointed out that it was Hyatt that first took the two sides' stalemate public by seemingly leaking a communication to property owners about a decision to withdraw listings from Expedia in the event of no new agreement.
In its reporting of this story, Skift learned:
The broad outlines of the new Hyatt agreement with the Priceline Group
The issues stalemating the Hyatt-Expedia negotiations.
Skift learned that Hyatt signed a primary distribution deal in early June with Booking.com, one of the largest accommodations' sites on the planet, and
