Hotels.com tips

Many Expedia Group websites in the U.S. and other locations around the world were down Sunday afternoon Eastern Daylight Time for at least several hours.

Expedia Group’s Peter Kern is handing off the CEO title to Ariane Gorin on May 13 as the company’s annual partner conference is about to kick off in Las Vegas.

What caused the widespread outages at many of Expedia Group properties this weekend? The company initially attributed them to “maintenance” but provided a different explanation Monday:

Sponsored listings on Expedia.com and Hotels.com are a “significant” portion of Expedia Group’s advertising business, and the company is considering ways to launch them for the first time on its vacation rental platform Vrbo, as well.

One of the knocks on Tripadvisor a decade ago was that it was too dependent on its two largest advertisers, Expedia and the Priceline Group.

In December 2019, Ariane Gorin, president of Expedia Business Services, moderated a fireside chat with Chairman Barry Diller and Vice Chairman Peter Kern at an all-hands employee meeting. Expedia Group had just parted ways with its CEO and CFO, and Kern would soon be named CEO.

Outgoing Expedia Group CEO Peter Kern said a technology platform migration completed late last year hurt Vrbo’s ability to convert lookers into bookers, but that now the company’s vacation rental unit is ready to get back on offense.

A giant Hotels.com advert on the side of one of the oldest, mix-used buildings in downtown Los Angeles is hard to miss.

The traditional knock on Expedia Group in its matchup against rival Booking Holdings is that Booking has been way more profitable. And Booking can take those profits, plow them back into marketing, and win more market share.