Expedia Will Try to Capitalize on Priceline's and TripAdvisor's M&A Distractions
Skift Take
Expedia's strategy is worth a shot: Focus on hotels and other core products while competitors the Priceline Group and TripAdvisor play around with restaurant reservations, and tours and activities. If Expedia sticks to its focus-on-what-we-got strategy, it is a huge gamble.
Does Expedia Inc. finally have an opening to make strides against Booking.com and TripAdvisor?
After all, consider that Booking.com doesn't offer flights and cars, and has benefited over the years from its focus on hotels, and lately other types of lodging such as vacation rentals and apartments.
But the Priceline Group, of which Booking.com is the most important component, is getting into the restaurant reservations business with its $2.6 billion acquisition of OpenTable.
And TripAdvisor, which already has its hands full with the company's year-old hotel metasearch product, just announced it will be acquiring tours and activities provider Viator for $2
