Booking Holdings

When we asked then-Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi in 2016 whether Airbnb was going to eat his lunch, he responded that he was very well-nourished. But it now appears as though Airbnb has an insatiable appetite. Join us on a Skift Call March 13 to assess the Airbnb threat to hotels and online travel agencies.

Executives at Booking Holdings, formerly the Priceline Group, feel aggrieved that the company isn't getting the credit it deserves in alternative accommodations. In a lot of ways, its battle with Airbnb is over business models. As Airbnb ramps up hotels, we'll have to see who blinks.

Oh, how times have changed. Instead of feeling threatened by Airbnb, some hotels are being wooed by the company. Online travel agencies, on the other hand, are about to get a taste of what it feels like to be disrupted by the likes of Airbnb.

In which we try to make some sense out of what we know Airbnb is doing now — and what it hopes to be doing over the next 10 years.

The name change to Booking Holdings reflects the reality that Booking.com dominates the parent company's business. Although the parent company still calls Connecticut home, the balance of power shifted long ago to Amsterdam.

The Priceline Group's new emphasis on TV is unpleasant news for metasearch enterprises such as Trivago, Google, and TripAdvisor. The TV ads are an online travel agency version of a direct-booking campaign.

Behind the usual Ryanair bluster there usually lurks a sensible business idea. If the airline offers a better accommodation product to customers, then that should persuade some to stay away from Booking.com.

Is it just the varied nature of the two advertising platforms, Google's versus Facebook's, that makes Google more effective at identifying traveler intent? Some would make that argument. If the travel industry hopes that Facebook will ever supplant Google as an advertising platform, then buckle up for an extended wait.

Did we just see an elephant fly? The Priceline Group, which is the largest spender on digital advertising in travel, just said TV commercials may be a better way to attract loyal customers. That's even more surprising than TV-happy Trivago's recent announcement that it would start devoting more resources to digital advertising. Don't you love this industry?

Discrimination has long caused travel anxiety for demographics underserved by the travel industry. Historically, travelers looked to their respective tribes for intel, but the burgeoning friend economy may be reshaping that concept.