Expedia News

Booking sites are offering more types of travel products and services on their platforms. Of these verticals, alternative accommodations are a highly contested space where Booking and Airbnb lead for now.

Calling all data scientists and engineers with experience at using machine learning. Expedia is hiring.

Many online travel agencies are no longer specialists in one product, instead aiming to become one-stop shops. The platform that a booking site can offer is a key part of its competitive moat and the contours of supply at Booking Holding and Expedia vary widely from each other.

Much of the metasearch business is beyond the control of the metasearch companies themselves because their largest advertisers can switch things up five minutes ago. Just ask Trivago, and to a lesser extent, TripAdvisor. The best they can hope to do is to diversify their advertiser base and to keep plugging away.

It's so rare to see something new in online travel. Expedia's Add-On Advantage appears to be a new wrinkle, and HotelTonight's Today's Daily Drop is a flash sale variation that disappears within 15 minutes. Both gives hoteliers new ways to target travelers, who may find some good deals in the process.

Trivago and Booking.com have dramatically reduced their U.S. TV advertising. Trivago is doing so to try to stem losses, and Booking.com, which last year indicated it would lean into TV advertising, may be trying to tighten control of some marketing costs.

Has the worm turned? Have Expedia and Booking.com found a way to trim the growth of their bloated advertising spend? That would not be great news for some advertising platforms, and would be a significant change in the way the largest players conduct their marketing operations.

A lot of Trivago's problems, including an advertising diss from Booking Holdings, are beyond the company's control so it is doing what it can, namely reducing advertising spend and headcount in an attempt to get into the black. Speaking of Booking Holdings, Trivago may need a dot-com-like Priceline comeback to right the ship.

We still think there's a pretty good chance that we'll see Expedia-branded hotels in the near future if not sooner.

It’s not particularly shocking to learn that travelers combine their business and leisure travels, but it may be somewhat surprising to hear that this is still a rapidly growing phenomenon. Brands should take notice.