Expedia News

Expedia Inc. is following the TripAdvisor playbook on Trivago, which could go the spinoff/IPO route one day. The Priceline Group, meanwhile, is focusing on Booking.com and new-prize OpenTable as priorities while being measured about Kayak's international expansion.

Even large online travel agencies like Expedia need marketing partners, and that is where the metasearch sites come in. In Expedia's view, its own subsidiary Trivago is helping Expedia compensate for the traffic it is losing, and will continue to lose, from TripAdvisor.

Lobbying firm Dickstein Shapiro tells prospective clients: "State AGs are the new sheriffs in town. Do you know them? We do. Sophisticated lawyering. Unparalleled relationships." It all seems to have paid off in Florida.

The survey brings home the point that travelers' smartphone behaviors vary widely from country to country. India's MakeMyTrip tries to keep users on smartphones, and Expedia makes it easier for users to transition from device to device. The differences are dramatic.

In the current M&A environment, HomeAway is both the pursued and the pursuer. And all of this takes place as HomeAway becomes an even more attractive acquisition target because it is getting aggressive and ahead of schedule, expecting a majority of its listings to be bookable online within two years.

Being a leading online travel company these days means adding expensive pieces to the portfolio, and both the Priceline Group and Expedia Inc. are signaling that their acquisition sprees are far from being finished.

The HomeAway-Expedia partnership is an important milestone for HomeAway, in particular, marking a new era of expanded distribution that starts with Expedia.com in the U.S., but will likely appear in other places, as well.

The skirmish between Expedia and Orbitz over their respective revamped loyalty programs continues, as Expedia points out that that its VIP program has more hotels, and its points don't expire as quickly.

Why didn't someone think of this before? (Perhaps someone did.) It isn't the end-all, be-all in travel search, but it is a step ahead in ease of use.

Booking.com is a big-time leader in travel marketing through Google, and Expedia spends a ton of money on search engine marketing, too. While both companies are committed to this type of "pull" marketing, Expedia is making a big bet on multi-device search and "push" notifications as the future of travel booking.