Expedia News

It is very attractive for Booking.com to abstain from charging travelers a booking fee on vacation rentals. But the lack thereof means Booking.com's commissions may not be competitive and shareholders will likely demand that Booking.com maximize the revenue opportunity and impose the booking fee.

The German regulator's ruling to reject Booking.com's reformed hotel rate practices as not going far enough could be a landmark decision if it holds up upon appeal and if other European countries follow Germany's lead. Booking.com may have the leverage to inhibit hotel partners from getting carried away on discounting but the ruling is a victory for consumers nonetheless.

25 Moments that Mattered in 2015: To make our selection of 25 moments, we thought back to the stories that drove reader engagement and sparked discussion among both travel experts and the general public. Some stories were quick blips that represented bigger things while others were narratives that built slowly through out the year. Each one, though, spoke to where we are right now when it comes to the big business of global travel.

25 Moments that Mattered in 2015: To make our selection of 25 moments, we thought back to the stories that drove reader engagement and sparked discussion among both travel experts and the general public. Some stories were quick blips that represented bigger things while others were narratives that built slowly through out the year. Each one, though, spoke to where we are right now when it comes to the big business of global travel.

Consider the big changes ahead for HomeAway, including making its listings online bookable, supplementing subscription fees with commission payments, introducing a booking fee for travelers and getting integrated with Expedia. When you further take into account competition from Airbnb, Booking.com, TripAdvisor and a bevy of local rivals, there is a helluva lot of risk ahead.

In aggregate the reviews are mostly positive, but combing through individual reviews points to two companies where employees are concerned about advancement opportunities or work/life balance in the shadows of whatever great perks are offered. Winning over the consumer rarely happens unless a company wins over its employees as well.

It's another chapter in the convergence of everything: Expedia, the online travel agency, invested in the Alice guest-experience app as Expedia tries to get deeper into providing technology services for hotels. Everyone's doing it -- or will soon.

The websites that have the most comprehensive set of lodging choices, whether they are hotels, vacation rentals, apartments or igloos, will dominate. Expedia, through its HomeAway acquisition and intent to develop apartment rentals in cities, knows this and is getting ready for the future of travel in lodging.

In the consolidation game, Expedia's business model is to do heavy integration of the acquired companies' back-end platforms while retaining their brands and axing lots of employees to trim costs and boost the bottom line. Synergies for some, unemployment for others.

Priceline Group CEO Darren Huston touts his company's organic growth versus Expedia Inc.'s strategy of mostly acquiring companies that need to be put back on track. Rest assured, however, that Priceline would plunk down a few billion dollars on the right acquisition target. It just wasn't HomeAway, and TripAdvisor and Airbnb are too expensive.