Expedia News

It is the beginning of year two for HomeAway within the Expedia portfolio, but rival Airbnb is also getting aggressive in its digital marketing of vacation rentals and Booking.com is no slouch, either. Perhaps to the chagrin of hotels, the vacation rental category is getting a ton of more exposure.

In 2008, Venere became Expedia's great hope in Europe to play catch-up and take on Booking.com's dominance. Whether it was a lack of execution or Booking.com's scale advantages being too imposing to overcome, that dynamic never came to fruition.

TripAdvisor has been struggling but it is a testament to its continued power as a marketing vehicle that Expedia Inc. felt compelled to participate in TripAdvisor Instant Booking even though Expedia controls its own TripAdvisor wannabe. It's called Trivago. A newly anointed public company, Trivago's growth could one day be an Expedia hedge against TripAdvisor's clout, although Trivago isn't there yet.

Overall, the initial day of trading amounted to a modest success for Trivago. Its founders made a bundle, it generated a couple of hundred million dollars for expansion, and its valuation crossed the $4 billion threshold -- even though it had hoped for much more and was undoubtably disappointed about the manner in which it debuted. This is a long game; verdicts now are meaningless.

In the 45 days leading up to an online travel purchase, American shoppers visit travel sites an average of 140 times — here are three tips for travel marketers to reach and influence the online booker throughout their path to purchase.

There's little question that Trivago is going to get very big in coming years. Whether it can turn on a profitability gene, and whether its stock price tanks or zooms after it goes public, will be up to the market to decide.

When you think of all the online travel companies constrained by a lack of marketing resources wipe Trivago out of your mind. The Germany-based hotel metasearch site spends a whopping 88 percent of its revenue on advertising. And, if it can pull off a successful initial public offering then Trivago will resupply its advertising war chest. The metasearch rich are getting richer.

Ctrip, when acquiring Skyscanner, should call up, or at least compare notes with, companies as varied as Sabre, Travelocity, the Priceline Group, and Expedia when mulling the challenges in integrating a new prized possession. These new playthings can in rare cases turn into the success of a Booking.com, but on the other hand they have the potential to wreak havoc.

When it comes to new tech platforms and technologies such as voice-activated search with Amazon Alexa, the advantage, in the short term, goes to the big travel tech and marketing companies, including online travel agencies and metasearch companies, because they have the engineering staff and other resources to address these disruptions.

Like Hipmunk, Room 77 had an innovative product and talented team but ran into a buzz saw: the marketing clout of Google preferencing its own products, and Expedia, Booking.com and Kayak. Don't feel sorry for the venture capital firms receiving just 53 cents on the dollar. That's the game they play. The real losers are the angel investor and employees, although we're sure for many it was quite a ride nonetheless.