Booking Holdings and Expedia in Arms Race to Deliver the Connected Trip
Skift Take
From the wishful thinking and hype of years ago, the connected trip is beginning to draw real investment and become a thing. It will take a very extended period of time to make it a more meaningful development. In that faraway horizon, will there indeed be any differentiation among the leading providers?
High-stake online travel agency competition used to merely revolve around how many tens of thousands of hotels, or homes and apartments each company added to its ranks during the previous quarter, and those milestones are still very much in play.
But lately a new and somewhat more esoteric flashpoint has emerged, namely the connected trip. Enter Booking Holdings and Expedia into this fray.
Travel industry executives have referred to the concept by various names, including the connected trip, the perfect trip, even frictionless travel, and the idea has been bandied about for years.
Five years ago, then-Concur CEO Steve Singh dreamed of the perfect trip, where an app would float flight-rebooking recommendations when a flight was delayed, the hotel check-in process could begin when exiting the plane, and further down the jetway a car rental option appears on your phone. The company even had the Perfect Trip Fund to nurture startups to help in the mission.
But with advances in mobile, artificial intelligence, and a consequent stampede toward personalized services for travelers, the connected trip is attracting
