Skift Travel News Blog

Short stories and posts about the daily news happenings around the travel industry.

Online Travel

Kayak and OpenTable Laid Off 80 Employees

5 months ago

Kayak and OpenTable, two Booking Holdings brands, laid off 80 employees, Skift has learned.

A screen grab from Kayak’s Sorry, Winston commercial. Source: Kayak

A spokesperson said that was less than 5% of their workforce.

“Like many other companies, we needed to make some difficult staffing changes as we sharpen our priorities,” the spokesperson said. “We continue to have ambitious plans for our meta brands and are doubling down on our core product focus.”

The employees affected were in the brands’ travel and shared services teams, the company said.

Kayak has several metasearch, or comparison shopping, brands, including Kayak, Momondo and Hotelscombined, among others. OpenTable is Bookings’ dining reservations platform.

Online Travel

Booking Holdings Takes Restaurant Competition to Asia-Pacific With Inline Investment

2 years ago

Booking Holdings’ OpenTable dining reservations platform, which is strongest in the U.S., and Inline Group, with strength in Asia-Pacific, have entered into a strategic partnership where their customers will be able to reserve tables in the establishments of their respective restaurant partners.

In tandem with the strategic partnership, Booking Holdings made an investment in Inline Group. The companies did not announcement the amount.

A file photo of Tony Fernandes, CEO of Capital A, at his first Santan restaurant in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Photo: AirAsia Group

Inline powers dining reservations in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, and the U.S., according to its website.

“Inline has quickly built a leadership position in select markets in Asia and is growing throughout the region,” Debby Soo, OpenTable CEO, said in a statement. “We’re delighted to partner with them as we expand OpenTable’s presence in the Asia-Pacific region.”

In Booking Holdings’ strongest region, Europe, Tripadvisor’s TheFork is the strongest player in dining reservations. So Booking is investing apparently where it sees the best opportunity — Asia-Pacific.