First Look at Trivago Express Booking Shows Sharp Contrast With TripAdvisor

With Expedia rival Booking.com agreeing to offer its hotel bookings on TripAdvisor, Expedia Inc. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi was quick to point out last week that Expedia-owned Trivago "is now pretty aggressively testing out a product that looks like [TripAdvisor] Instant Book." Actually, it doesn't. In a first look at the Trivago hotel-booking initiative, it is clear that the look and feel of TripAdvisor Instant Booking and what Trivago is calling Express Booking are vastly different, as are the philosophies behind them and the business models. But there are gray areas, as well -- at least for now. During Expedia's third quarter earnings call October 30, Khosrowshahi pointed to some of the differences between Trivago's and TripAdvisor's rollouts. "We think that there is a lot more clarity again on where the consumer is booking their travel," Khosrowshahi said. "Trivago is simply trying to optimize that path versus let's say gather consumer data to upsell them other stuff. So they are very, very focused on just optimizing that consumer experience in that moment." In fact, Trivago managing director Johannes Thomas tells Skift, "it is important to clarify that we are not taking bookings on Trivago. So our users are not 'Booking on Trivago' but we are rather helping to facilitate the booking funnel, and create a smoother booking experience with an optimized UX (user experience) via an overlay on the booking site." Trivago actually has just launched in Germany two types of facilitated bookings, Express Booking for online travel agencies, and an Internet booking engine for hotels, and plans to expand them into additional markets in 2016. As we'll show in more detail below, Thomas' statement that Trivago actually isn't taking any bookings itself doesn't appear to be entirely factual, although these products are new and evolving and are subject to change. For example, I booked a stay through Triva