Articles tagged “buuteeq”

Booking.com knows a few things about website creation and it plans on sharing these skills with hotels and becoming a key tech provider to them in the near future. The distribution business would still be primary, but Booking.com officials are bullish about its prospects in the B2B sector.

Is Sabre worried about Booking.com getting into the hotel B2B game? Not overly, but in acquiring Genares, Sabre is proving that the best defense is a good offense.

Will Booking.com be as good at business services for hotels as it is for selling their rooms, and will a move into enterprise services for hotels be a huge distraction? We are about to find out.

The Priceline Group's acquisition of Buuteeq, the largest of two hotel marketing-related acquisitions in the second quarter of 2014, was likely more substantial than most observers imagined. It is part of Priceline's strategy to become a B2B service provider for hotels.

Priceline CEO Darren Huston has been aggressive with acquisitions in his short tenure, although it is possible that discussions with OpenTable began with the prior regime. Still, having acquired Kayak for $2.1 billion in 2013, and maneuvering through the pending $2.6 billion buy of OpenTable, Huston probably has his hands full for now.

In the letter to employees, Priceline Group CEO Huston stated the Buuteeq and OpenTable deals had been under consideration for an extended period and coincidentally took place days apart. He added that "big deals" and "fancy strategies" shouldn't distract employees from the work at hand.

Concur has plenty of loose change for these types of investments, some of which will pay off by spurring innovation and tighter company-to-company relationships.