Expedia tips

California legislators have passed two bills that could impact how the state’s 6,000 hotels and thousands of short-term rentals inform consumers about so-called junk fees, such as resort fees and housekeeping fees.

Expedia Group has completed another round of layoffs. Tript Singh Lamba, a senior vice president of the travel booking giant, sent an internal message about the layoffs last Thursday, which was obtained by GeekWire.

Trivago built a global brand as a place to find hotel deals in the years leading up to its 2016 IPO based on a blitz of TV advertising. You couldn’t avoid the Trivago Guy on U.S. TV, and his male and female counterparts were equally ubiquitous in markets from Germany to Australia.

Airlines used to lean on online travel agencies to find customers. But now in something of a turnabout, airlines have enough loyalists that online travel companies are, in some cases, providing services to airlines to help them sell upsells and packages directly.

Travelport is planning to sell its Hotelzon division to corporate travel agency startup TripStax, which was officially launched earlier this year — by two former execs at Travelport.

Expedia will continue to invest in gaining long-term value customers despite the risk of losing bookings to its competitors, as it focuses on brand awareness, paid app downloads and its loyalty program.

The vice chairman and CEO of Expedia Group, Peter Kern, covered a lot of ground during his session at Skift Global Forum in New York City in September. Kern gave his perspective on mergers and acquisitions, technology, and micro-services.

Good morning from Skift. It’s Tuesday, December 6. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

The dynamics of ancillary travel product distribution for airlines is continuously changing. Brand loyal customers are the order of the day. Yet in symbiotic ecosystems where airlines use online travel giants like Expedia to tailor their travel packages, competition for loyal customers is unavoidable.

Travelers booking flights and hotels from Expedia in a co-branded feature in the Afterpay app can now choose to pay in four interest-free payments over six weeks, Expedia announced.

In Skift Research’s latest report check in on the current state of Expedia Group and Booking Holdings, the big two online travel agencies in the U.S. and Europe, as they recover from the Covid-19 pandemic. 

At various junctures during the pandemic, Booking Holdings faced difficulties because of the weakness of the euro and China’s shuttered borders but now stands to make strides because of favorable foreign exchange trends and China’s travel reopening.

In some ways the Middle East is a victim of its own success: It weathered the pandemic relatively well, and the luxury market proved resilient. But now as tourism to the region swiftly recovers, the challenge is how do brands operating there stand out when inter-regional competition is so fierce?

Hari Nair, Expedia Group’s global senior vice president and general manager of lodging marketplace, took the stage with Skift founder and CEO Rafat Ali this week to discuss big trends shaping travel for 2023 at Skift’s annual Megatrends event in New York City. The industry veteran gives his take on travel spending, talent acquisition, and opportunities for loyalty programs across Expedia’s house of brands.

U.S. and European airlines will benefit from pent-up demand for travel to China after its recent border reopening, but route approvals, fresh Covid-19 testing rules and not enough large aircraft remain barriers to rising sales, analysts and industry officials say.

In an effort to combat the hold that online travel agencies have on the hotel market, Trivago is focusing on building a capability for direct access between hotels and travelers. 

Good morning from Skift. It’s Wednesday, March 1. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

American Express Global Business Travel is finding that hotel bookings are recovering faster than flights when it comes to business trip bookings.

With hotels seeing a big bounce in bookings, so too can they expect to see more so-called rogue rates creeping back. These are rates that they’ve not authorized, and are a common complaint. Now one of the major bedbank players has developed a platform to help hotels fix any rogue rates they spot.

Kayak exited the business of opening hotels and branding them as Kayak hotels, Skift has learned.

Good morning from Skift. It’s Wednesday, April 5. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.