Booking Site CEOs' Most Quotable Moments of 2015
Skift Take
Travel-booking CEOs say the darnedest things: the Priceline Group's Darren Huston basically said he didn't waste $4 billion on acquiring HomeAway, like he thinks Expedia did, and Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi let the word out that his company had been shut out of TripAdvisor Instant Booking. One can only wonder what they are saying to one another when they huddle in private.
Say that again?
Sometimes a big-time travel CEO will say something especially insightful about a trend or development, or will unleash a zinger that takes you aback.
Here are a series of quotes from 2015 that are worth repeating and reflecting on:
Priceline Group CEO Didn't Spend $4 Billion on HomeAway
In one such zinger, Priceline Group CEO Darren Huston commented on Expedia Inc.'s $3.9 billion acquisition of HomeAway and contrasted it with the Priceline Group's actions in the vacation rental sector.
“I didn’t end up spending $4 billion, and we did it with just a couple of handful of people,” Huston said, referring to building Booking.com’s vacation rental business. “That is an indication of what makes our company special. It’s been organic execution, it has created more value for the company than M&A, and that continues to be our bet.”
Priceline Group's Huston on Expedia's Business Practices and Strategy
There have been a lot of layoffs at struggling companies that Expedia Inc. acquired in 2015.
Huston argues that the Priceline Group strategy is to build or acquire leading brands — specialty stores, he calls them — as opposed to Expedia Inc.’s acquisition-consolidation strategy related to brands that have struggled, including Travelocity and Orbitz Worldwide.
“I like playing up that hand better than going in and buying companies that aren’t doing very well, and stripping out all the workforce and slapping them on to a [common platform],” Huston says.
Ouch.
Priceline Group CEO Darren Huston on the 'Same Customer'
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