The Expedia Case For and Against Keeping Orbitz and Travelocity

A research report found that Expedia Group has lost global hotel market share since the onset of the pandemic, and all of it has come from plunging business at non-core brands, such as Hotwire, eBookers, Orbitz and Travelocity.

In contrast, Bernstein research determined that foundational Expedia Group brands Expedia.com and Vrbo are increasing market share, and that "the sub-brands' losses look to be by design, and have already lost half of their pre-Covid share."

The backdrop to these developments is that the Bernstein report, "Global OTAs: A deep dive into market share - not all is as it seems," stated that "For the first time in history — Booking and Expedia have lost aggregate share through Covid."

But lumping together Booking Holdings and Expedia Group, if ever the hotel lobby's "duopoly" designation was ever on point, is somewhat arbitrary. The report noted that Booking actually gained a small slice of marketshare since the pandemic began while Expedia Group, and metasearch, lost ground. Google, Airbnb, Hopper eDreams, Trip.com and direct bookings (Marriott, Hilton and Hyatt) were the beneficiaries, the report stated.

One can see from the chart that Booking and Expedia's combined global hotel market share fell from an estimated 20 pe