Booking Holdings Is Taking Its Time to Deliver On a Steep Promise
Skift Take
Booking.com is taking its sweet time to implement a flights-to-attractions travel offering. Some would say the pace is Google-like in its slowness. But behind the scenes, data reigns supreme, and dictates whether a product is scrapped, implemented with a twist, or then reshaped anew. Refill the popcorn. This will take a while.
In the summer of 2017, Booking.com broke with its accommodations-only tradition, and suddenly restaurants, rental cars and flights tabs appeared atop its homepage.
It was seemingly crystal clear that after years of focusing on hotels and alternative accommodations, Booking.com would be branching out — Expedia-like — into becoming a full-service online travel agency.
Asked about the initiative nine months later, in April of this year, CEO Glenn Fogel confirmed the direction that Booking Holdings' biggest and most important brand was taking.
[caption id="attachment_314406" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Booking.com's homepage on June 26, 2017 showed tabs for Accommodations, Restaurants, Rental Cars, and Flights. A different version of the homepage on November 21, 2018 displayed tabs for Accommodations, Flights, Flight+Hotel, Car Rentals and Airport Taxis.[/caption]
“That’s what we are driving to, yes,” Fogel said. “What I would say, again, is what we are trying to create is a wholistic system that solves all issues of the trip.”
But, then he added a kicker, which seemed like a routine disclaimer at the time.
“I can’t give you a timetable, but I will say, we are on that road," Fogel said.
Fast forward to the present — 17 months since that first hint of a more comprehensive approach went live — and from outward appearances Booking.com doesn't appear to really have made much progress.
What you see on the Booking.com homepage at one moment might be gone the next; or it will appear differently on another browser, device, or in a different country.
"Unless you're using Booking.com super-consis
