Interview: OpenTable CEO on How Its Game Changes Within Priceline
Skift Take
Given the consumer base of sister companies Booking.com, Agoda and Kayak, OpenTable now has the chance to expand beyond its traditional local orientation into a dining app for travelers, as well. Some of its learnings and technologies can also apply to hotels and tours and activities.
As CEO of OpenTable, Matthew Roberts led the dining reservations' company through a 2009 IPO, its $2.6 billion sale to the Priceline Group in July, and now he's helping to orchestrate the company's expansion from a primarily local-oriented restaurant-transactions company into a global dining experiences company that hopes to be front of mind for travelers in the U.S. and internationally.
As the largest online dining reservations company in the world and with operations in six countries, consider where OpenTable stands: It has relationships with some 32,000 restaurants, powers reservations for nearly 600 online partners, and facilitates the seating of more than 15 million restaurant patrons per month. OpenTable did $190 million in revenue in 2013.
In the grand scheme of things, when you consider how large the restaurant industry is, and how backward much of it is in terms of technology, there is a gigantic potential upside.
As OpenTable and sister brands within the Priceline Group work on integrating dining recommendations, reservations and mobile payments, Skift spoke with Roberts about working within the Priceline Group, the challenges and opportunities in international expansion, the current mergers and acquisitions environment, and OpenTable's evolution as it grappled to figure out the proper balance between focus and investment.
An edited version of the interview follows:
Skift: I'm only saying it slightly jokingly, please don't say it's business as usual. But how have things changed in the early days under the Priceline Group and what are some of the big things you are working on now?
Matthew Roberts: So I won't say it is business as usual because it really hasn't been. We really do run OpenTable independently. That is absolutely the case. We continue to run the business as an entreprenuerially led independent operation and that's a lot of fun. It's fun for the team and it allows us to continue to take our mission forward.
There are not a lot of operating synergies that would be at play because of the way the Priceline Group has structured itself. I would say if you look at dining it is absolutely one of the key focal points for travel. So that it is a perfect complement to many of the Group brands. So we are looking for seamless integration points, really at the right touchpoint, to help the traveler find and book the perfect restaurant for them. We can do that really by close collaboration. We can do that by making sure that the
