Expedia News

If Airbnb is indeed seeing a slowdown of its business in more mature markets like Europe and the U.S., that's all the more reason for the company to double down on its efforts in emerging markets like China, and to work on adding more professional inventory, ahem, hotels.

No one saw that Argentina's economy would take such a bad turn this year. But Despegar, based in Buenos Aires, is making moves to weather the storm after its market valuation has been slashed in half.

It might not be surprising to hear that rich experiences will continue to be high on the lists of travelers in 2019. But there are a few trends that will shape the types of experiences they’ll be looking for.

The biggest knock on the online travel agencies these days is that the competition is intense and that their golden years are done. Expedia's Mark Okerstrom counters that his company has a single-digit share of a $1.6 trillion market, and he's going wide and deep to pick up more. The jury is still out.

When it comes to the acquisition game, Expedia Group CEO Mark Okerstrom is one of the travel industry's savviest players. It's fun to see him back at it, after a mostly quiet period of him settling into the company's top job.

Shares in the hotel search company rose the most in two years on news that a cut in ad spending had pushed the Expedia-controlled company into the black. But the company, which once enjoyed meteoric growth, seems unlikely to return to turbo-charged revenue gains anytime soon.

When Google perfects vacation package search, this could be a very compelling product because some have tried, but few are doing it in any meaningful way. This is all part of Google's steady and ongoing rise in the travel e-commerce ecosystem.

Diller is one of the godfathers of online travel and Expedia is probably among the top two travel advertisers in Google. Whether his comments will lead to lobbying or business practice changes, is today's multibillion dollar question.

An Expedia acquisition of Thomas Cook? While problematic on many fronts, including buying all of those offline agents, it isn't out of the question. Consider that Expedia would gain access to a customer base in Europe that it hardly touches. Expedia's Barry Diller has made a ton of acquisitions. He and Okerstrom are hardly done yet.

Voice-based search will not only have technology issues to overcome, but in an era when news of data breaches is commonplace, companies such as Expedia will have to address the personalization and privacy issues as well.