Hotwire Ties Run Deep Through Vacasa SPAC Deal
Skift Take
Dennis' Online Travel Briefing
Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, Executive Editor and online travel rockstar Dennis Schaal will bring readers exclusive reporting and insight into the business of online travel and digital booking, and how this sector has an impact across the travel industry.Online Travel This Week
As I traced the ties among Hotwire alum that run through the pending Vacasa SPAC deal, I was thinking I'd pay to try the game if a software geek took a database of former and present executives and created the online travel version of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.
As background, some of the things you need to know to appreciate where this is going are that in 1999 Texas Pacific Group partner and now TPG Pace Chairman Karl Peterson took a $75 million investment from Texas Pacific Group and major airlines, and founded Hotwire, a discount travel site, to compete against Priceline.com.
Some 22 years later, in April 2021, Peterson, who is senior partner at private equity firm TPG and board chairman of the newly minted TPG Pace special purpose acquisition company, made the initial approach to Joe Osnoss, managing partner of Vac
