Expedia News

Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, CheapTickets, Hotels.com, Hotwire, and Trivago -- they would all belong to Expedia Inc. if this Expedia-Orbitz deal gets approved by regulators. It's nice to be king -- although Priceline and Booking.com may have something to say about that.

It's just Priceline Vs. Expedia now in the U.S., at least for now.

A smart look at the factors, including the rush toward direct bookings, that are shaping the entire metasearch sector in 2015.

When Huston took over as CEO of the Priceline Group 13 months ago, a financial analyst told us that Huston would play it safe and not make any bold moves in his first year at the helm because he needed to assure Wall Street about his leadership. Boy, was that analyst wrong.

It would be prudent for the established leaders in online travel not to get over-confident. They are going to have to work extremely hard to maintain their positions, which will undoubtedly be altered

There is no question that Kayak management would kill to be the beneficiary of the kind of marketing/advertising commitment that Expedia is making to Trivago. It is really tough to compete with one hand tied behind your back.

The Roaming Gnome himself whispers to us that he is very happy about the Expedia acquisition of Travelocity. It was touch and go under Sabre ownership for such a long time as Sabre, with priorities elsewhere, totally bungled ownership of Travelocity and Lastminute.com.

Expedia is expected to retain the Travelocity brand. It would be foolish not to because the whole value proposition is to tap into the allegiances of Travelocity loyalists. And that leaves Orbitz out in the cold. It is unable to achieve scale and Expedia and the Priceline Group are apparently not interested in scooping Orbitz up.

Orbitz Worldwide is putting itself up for sale, and the leak to Bloomberg may be a signal that the bidding hasn't been particularly robust to date.

It is interesting that Expedia touts the new feedback tool for hoteliers as a way to discourage negative reviews instead of as a means for improving customer service. There is something wrong with the juxtaposition.