Expedia News

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.

Airline officials can't just snap their fingers to proclaim they have successfully become way more than an airline. That being said, AirAsia did launch a new vacation package business called Snap. AirAsia's digital business is still very much a work in progress with much to be proven.

The concept makes sense, but there's a risk that metasearch sites could come unstuck coping with all the complexities corporate travel will entail when it eventually restarts.

Jackpot.

Sometimes CEO views of where online travel is headed seem more about the capabilities of their companies than anything else. Will pandemic-induced travel preferences make for dominant trends five or 10 years from now? Highly doubtful.