Analysis: Expedia, with Trivago, won't get caught flat-footed this time around
Skift Take
Priceline and Booking.com should feel some heat from Expedia and Trivago in Europe, where Kayak faces the sentiment that it is an American interloper.
Expedia and Priceline, with their respective Trivago and Kayak transactions, are writing the next chapter in online and mobile travel competition in Europe, and Expedia is ensuring that it isn't relegated to also-ran status this time around.
Expedia's announcement December 21 that it intends to take a 62 percent stake in Dusseldorf-based Trivago for $632 million in cash and stock came just six weeks after Priceline revealed it will buy Kayak for $1.8 billion.
Expedia and its Hotels.com and Venere brands have been a relatively weak second over the years to Priceline and its Booking.com and Agoda subsidiaries in the hotel battle in Europe and Asia.
And now the Trivago and Kayak transactions bring travel metasearch prominently into the fray.
Priceline had been negotiating with Kayak for months before the agreement was announced, and undoubtedly Expedia had been talking to privately h
