Expedia News

Well this is bound to be interesting. Amazon appears to be going it alone to launch its own travel service for independent hotels in drive markets. Amazon has huge marketing power, but don't expect Amazon Travel to turn the hotel industry on its head any time soon.

Even though hotel responses don't seem to do much by way of making reviewers happier, this should be a wake-up call for hotels to devote equal attention to both TripAdvisor and Expedia, especially since Expedia is directly connected to bookings more so than TripAdvisor.

Hotels -- yes they do -- have to live with the fact that they move a lot of rooms through powerful online travel agencies. Platforms like CheckMate's can enable hotels to better communicate with their guests despite the involvement of the third parties.

Wouldn't it be great if airlines one day had to respond to flyers' adverse ratings of their flights just as hotel management often does on user review sites such as TripAdvisor? The airline industry isn't close to that point yet.

Expedia Inc. is following the TripAdvisor playbook on Trivago, which could go the spinoff/IPO route one day. The Priceline Group, meanwhile, is focusing on Booking.com and new-prize OpenTable as priorities while being measured about Kayak's international expansion.

Even large online travel agencies like Expedia need marketing partners, and that is where the metasearch sites come in. In Expedia's view, its own subsidiary Trivago is helping Expedia compensate for the traffic it is losing, and will continue to lose, from TripAdvisor.

Lobbying firm Dickstein Shapiro tells prospective clients: "State AGs are the new sheriffs in town. Do you know them? We do. Sophisticated lawyering. Unparalleled relationships." It all seems to have paid off in Florida.

The survey brings home the point that travelers' smartphone behaviors vary widely from country to country. India's MakeMyTrip tries to keep users on smartphones, and Expedia makes it easier for users to transition from device to device. The differences are dramatic.

In the current M&A environment, HomeAway is both the pursued and the pursuer. And all of this takes place as HomeAway becomes an even more attractive acquisition target because it is getting aggressive and ahead of schedule, expecting a majority of its listings to be bookable online within two years.

Being a leading online travel company these days means adding expensive pieces to the portfolio, and both the Priceline Group and Expedia Inc. are signaling that their acquisition sprees are far from being finished.