Expedia News

In top travel stories this week, Skift wrote about a contactless-tech airport terminal, 2022 as the earliest coronavirus recovery, Marriott's CEO talking about hygiene theater, United pointing to its future scaled-down size, and plenty more.

In some respects, travel companies are prisoners of their geographic strengths and weaknesses in the Covid-19 era. Operational considerations aside, it sure didn't hurt Trip.com Group to be based in China.

In this Skift Global Forum presentation we hear from Monya Mandich, Expedia Vice President, Marketing, about the information and considerations that will drive travel decisions now and into the future. 

Talk about tough love. The CEO of Expedia Group, Peter Kern, is sticking with the tough line despite the pandemic by still demanding a significant reorganization and tech revamp for the online travel giant.

Both of Barry Diller's companies, IAC and Expedia, are now invested in a travel recovery, which he thinks will arrive in only a matter of time. Count Diller on the side of those who believe the new normal will resemble its former self more than many people imagine.

As the travel industry looks toward recovery, understanding the attitudes and motivations of those who will be looking to travel again soon is critical to creating connections between advertisers and travelers as they dream, consider, and book their next trip.

This week in travel, Skift covered how the vacation rentals' advantage over hotels during the pandemic has all but disappeared, that climate change will be travel's challenge now and after the pandemic is history, and how Delta is leveraging its SkyMiles program.

The death of hotels was greatly exaggerated. Advantage Booking.com and Expedia — not Airbnb — if travelers indeed are now seeking out both hotels and vacation rentals in comparable numbers.

If the Expedia-Marriott partnership works out as promised, then there will be fewer Marriott rates on metasearch sites that are deeply discounted compared to Marriott's own websites. And bedbanks and tour operators will have to sign up with Expedia — not Marriott — to get their hands on Marriott's wholesale rates.

The Skift Health Score ranked Booking Holdings as the overall leader in August among 100 public travel companies but the entire travel industry faces grave uncertainties. Then there's that little search engine Google, which has an even larger travel business than Booking.