Did Booking.com Swallow Kayak? No, It's Just a Marketing Thing


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Booking.com may be a household name in Europe, but Kayak and OpenTable are far better known in the United States. Parent company Booking Holdings is touting the three companies' ties to advantage Booking.com in a way that might be a tad confusing to travel industry executives or NYU Hospitality students, but consumers could care less.
For at least the past three months, U.S.-based Kayak and OpenTable have branded themselves atop their homepages as being "Part of Booking.com," all three of which are sister companies within parent Booking Holdings. There's apparently a marketing motive behind the new cozy branding. The parent company, Booking Holdings, wants to parlay the U.S. brand recognition of Kayak and OpenTable into a higher stateside stature for its Amsterdam-headquartered Booking.com, the leading global accommodations seller that has tried to broaden its reach in the United States for the past several years. “We have been testing various collaborations across our brands for some time and this will continue," said Booking Holdings spokeswoman Leslie Cafferty. "We see this, specifically, as a bit of a marketing opportunity to further expose the Booking.com brand to the U.S. audience through brands tha