Expedia News

Online travel agencies used to be primarily concerned with handling bookings but now Expedia, Trivago, Booking.com and TripAdvisor are all making moves to give hoteliers executable intelligence about the market and other business-to-business services.

Independent hoteliers are indeed exploring alternatives to the big online travel agencies, including finding ways to spur more direct bookings, but sometimes it seems like a steep, uphill battle.

It was a helluva ride but the Expedia-Orbitz deal was never in serious jeopardy because there is plenty of competition despite the Expedia-Travelocity-Orbitz consolidation. But if Expedia gets greedy in the future and uses its new powers unwisely, you can bet that regulators will pounce.

We said all along that increased competition from Booking.com and TripAdvisor's burgeoning power as a hotel-booking site would be enough to get the Expedia-Orbitz deal approved. The Antitrust Division saw Google as an up-and-coming force in flight and hotel bookings, as well.

Expedia intends to improve customers' abilities to compare airfares from airline to airline but it will face a huge challenge in doing so because the airlines themselves will resist those sorts of comparisons.

We haven't seen the contract but can assure you this: Expedia gave some ground to American Airlines Group. Otherwise Expedia Inc. sites would not be getting access to American's and US Airways' ancillary services or be able to ink the deal to provide hotel inventory to AA.com.

Unlike the Priceline Group and Expedia Inc., TripAdvisor tried to go-it alone in China without a long-term home-grown partner. Expedia failed even though it had a Chinese partner in eLong so there are no guarantees in doing business in this potentially very lucrative but stubbornly difficult market.

Expedia's acquisition of Orbitz Worldwide would indeed limit consumer choice. However, what the American Hotel & Lodging Association doesn't mention is that Expedia-Orbitz would only control about 15 percent of the overall U.S. travel market when you consider hotels' own websites, phone lines and offline options in general.

Expedia's launch of vacation rentals in the U.S. in partnership with HomeAway has been a relative dud as Expedia hasn't shown much commitment to the effort. But Expedia has higher hopes for Europe, where vacation rentals are more commonly in travelers' consideration set.

Despite 88 filed lawsuits in the U.S. -- and now VAT issues in Europe -- the hotel occupancy tax issue has mostly been manageable for Expedia and the other online travel agencies. The sky indeed has not fallen.