Exclusive: Expedia Terminates Its Hopper Relationship, Says It ‘Exploits Consumer Anxiety’
Photo Credit: Expedia ended its supply relationship with Hopper over its business practices. Pictured is Hopper CEO and co-founder Frederic Lalonde (left) at Skift Global Forum in New York City in September 2022. Source: Skift Skift
Skift Take
Expedia ended its supplier relationship with Hopper over a variety of business practices it finds abhorrent. Was there a competitive motive involved, as well? Yup.
Expedia Group, which has supplied rival Hopper with hotel and vacation rental inventory for several years, terminated the relationship Wednesday over a variety of practices that Expedia believes are anti-consumer, Skift learned exclusively.
"Expedia Group terminated its supply relationship with Hopper today," an Expedia Group spokesperson told Skift. "The reasons for termination are simple: As Hopper's product has evolved, we have determined that its features exploit consumer anxiety and confuse customers, leading them to purchase services they neither need nor fully understand. As leaders in powering the B2B travel market, we have a commitment to travelers and to our supply partners that we take very seriously and, as such, we are ceasing placing our trusted supplier content on the Hopper platform."
A Hopper spokesperson said Wednesday that "although it seems that Expedia planned and delivered its notice in an anti-competitive attempt to cause disruption to Hop
