Expedia News

Besides the health issues involved with overwork, the U.S. tourism economy could benefit a lot more if Americans could take more vacations.

The changing of the guard is now official -- in more ways than one.

One of Expedia's answers to Booking.com is the Expedia Traveler Preference Program, giving consumers the choice to prepay for a hotel (merchant model) or pay at the hotel (an agency model like Booking.com's). Booking.com's sole use of the agency model gives it a speed advantage as the merchant model is more complicated when signing on and retaining hotels.

Expedia partnered with HomeAway on vacation rentals last week. One day it is going to partner with or acquire a sharing economy company built in the Airbnb mold, depending how the market shakes out. When you are as big as Expedia, you can afford to sit back and see how things shape up.

Expedia's focus will remain with hotels for the forseeable future, but this pilot partnership with HomeAway on vacation rentals is the very beginning of what could be a dramatic change.

You have to wonder whether Priceline relished breaking the $1,000 per share barrier or eclipsed the mark fearfully. With such records come very great expectations.

CheapOair has already proven that it can make a viable business out of flights when its competitors are scurrying to build their hotel businesses. There will be pressures, and it won't be the fastest-growing business in the world, but there is plenty of room for companies like CheapOair that keep their heads down and focus on areas that others are neglecting.

Online booking websites are more popular than travel agencies, branded bookings, and deals websites; however, meta-search's 10 percent jump this year indicates the growing sector could soon become a more formidable competitor.

In the wrong hands, studies like this will encourage people to launch trip-planning startups. History demonstrates that's not the best idea.