Articles tagged “booking holdings”

eMarketer paints a picture of the travel industry largely solving mobile booking issues by 2017, with one third of travel sales in the U.S. taking place on smartphones or tablets. Presumably most of it will be on tablets, though.

Travel industry digital ad spending is heavily skewed toward driving transactions because online travel agencies, which are primarily interested in converting lookers into bookers, are calling the shots.

It remains to be seen what Booking.com does with its new Villas.com and how heavily it gets promoted, but Booking.com clearly is committed to the vacation rental sector, and will likely make many more moves. HomeAway has to do much more to get its digital act together.

What does Priceline's $1.8 billion acquisition of metasearcher Kayak mean as the first-year anniversary approaches? If you are a big-time online travel agency, you gotta have one. Just ask Expedia, which got its hands on Trivago soon after Priceline made its move on Kayak.

Looking at where and how consumers are booking travel has become a proven indicator of coming commerce trends.

The Priceline Group is the dominant online player based on its scale, speed, search engine marketing strategy, and conversion skills, but perhaps its compensation policy should be added to the list of factors, as well.

What can dislodge Priceline's growth path over the next few years? How much of a dent can a large number two play? Are there any startups that would come up to change the equation completely? Seems unlikely on all fronts.

The growing popularity of third-party booking sites are making it easier for travelers to search, sort and book hostels, which is great news for operators unless commission rates erase the benefits of a booking hike.

Advertising technology is changing how marketers drive people to booking in digital, gone are the days of just search engine marketing.

Travel booking is a hassle for everyone from individual backpackers to multimillion dollar companies. These tools want to cut down on the costs and time needed to plan and then get from point A to point B.