Expedia's CEO Has a Formula to Beat Rivals Through Acquisitions and Growth
Skift Take
Baseball's N.Y. Yankees had its "core four" of Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada, and Mariano Rivera. And Expedia has its own core four, namely Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Trivago, and Egencia as the foundation for global growth and the plan is to add regional acquisitions around the edges.
In detailing the secrets of global expansion in travel, Expedia Inc. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is starting to sound a little bit like newsman Dan Rather.
On cost-cutting we learned from Khosrowshahi: "Fat pigs get slaughtered,"
He also outlined a formula (see more below) on growing hotel room nights sold. Once you work it all out, Khosrowshahi advised, "then rinse and repeat."
These homey admonitions for operating a global business with a $12 billion market cap were part of Khosrowshahi's explanation of how Expedia Inc.'s recent acquisitions of Travelocity, Wotif, and (it hopes) Orbitz Worldwide fit into its overall growth strategy.
Flush after notching a whopping 32 percent growth in hotel room nights, predominantly of the organic variety, and raising its property count to 510,000 hotels in the first quarter, Khosrowshahi laid out his formula for future acquisitions and growth.
Khosrowshahi said the company doesn't "need" acquisiti
