Kayak's Steve Hafner on the Expedia-Hopper Clash

In the aftermath of Expedia turning off its hotel and vacation rental feed to Hopper, Steve Hafner, the CEO of travel search engine Kayak and dining platform OpenTable, thinks Hopper took advantage of the relationship.

"Expedia finally wised up to Hopper's actions," Hafner told Skift. "They were taking Expedia's inventory, using those rates and sales volumes to prioritize direct deals, and then undercutting Expedia's prices because they could make it up later by selling fintech — that consumers don't need."

In other words, according to this line of thinking, Hopper would take advantage of the customer traffic that Expedia's hotel inventory drew into the Hopper app, and then offer its own direct deals with hotels at lower prices than Expedia offered. Hopper could