Booking Holdings

The Priceline Group is looking for a CEO who can handle disruption and big changes in technology and market conditions in coming years. Just look at the changes in the Group's accommodations mix as lodging alternatives are approaching half of the company's roster of properties.

Now-former Priceline Group CEO Darren Huston's decision to emphasize organic growth, his insistence that all properties sold on Booking.com be online bookable and instantly confirmable, and his strategy to keep Booking.com solely focused on the hotel business all set his tenure apart from those of his peers at Expedia. If you can set aside his apparently reckless behavior for a moment, it's a shame Huston won't be around to see his strategy through or to pivot, as required.

To some extent, Expedia is molding HomeAway to its liking. Unlike Booking.com (for now, at least), HomeAway is backing off its goal of making all vacation rentals online bookable. Expedia is also adding apartments in urban areas to better compete against Airbnb and Booking.com.

We pause our argument for the moment that the Priceline Group should be rebranded as the Booking.com Group because of the latter's wider brand recognition. The Priceline Group, which actually has no plans under way to rebrand, needs to get this messy Booking.com trademark issue cleared up first. It seems like such a stretch that one of the largest travel companies in the world can't get its trademark approved.

Online travel agencies such as Expedia and the Priceline Group providing business services to hotels is seemingly the new normal. It's easy to understand how this would be valuable to resource-strapped independent hotels but the degree to which major chains sign-on remains to be seen.

On one hand this could help raise Booking.com's profile in the U.S., which is so much lower than it deserves to be. On the other, a wedding is really when most people should turn to a travel agent (trust us: personal experience).

Many cash-strapped independent hoteliers have been relatively laid back and allowed Booking.com to bid on their trademarked names and are even handing over their digital marketing and website creation to Booking.com's BookingSuite division. Given their resource constraints, that's not likely to change in any meaningful way anytime soon.

While Expedia has been on a growth spurt given all of its acquisitions over the past year, Priceline has been saying that its "competitive moat" is wide but under-appreciated. A Priceline acquisition of TripAdvisor would make a bold statement and widen that competitive moat for all to see.

All companies want repeat, loyal customers. Expedia is willing to buy their allegiances through loyalty programs while Booking.com vows to do without. It's another point-counterpoint between the two companies as they compete against one another in villages and cities around the world.

Boutique may work when it comes to a relatively small business and finding a nice hotel room for the night, but the biggest travel companies, such as Expedia and Marriott, need to get bigger to keep up with the competitive pack.