Articles tagged “homeaway”

Turn on your hotel-room TV and you'll see property information. Vacation rentals will eventually get on board, too, and this is the start.

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.

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.

The latest revenue numbers from Airbnb explain why Expedia is acquiring HomeAway, the Priceline Group is touting its 21 million bookable rooms, and Wall Street analysts are questioning hotel-chain CEOs on the prospect of selling hotel rooms through Airbnb.

HomeAway, as it becomes part of Expedia Inc., will become more urban-oriented, and Airbnb is determined to onboard vacation rentals in resort locations. All of which means that Expedia, Airbnb, and Booking.com will increasingly butt heads over the next few years.

Everyone knows that being nimble enough to test and introduce new technology is a tremendous advantage. Behind the scenes, though, Expedia got good at another skill -- moving really fast to identify and make acquisitions.

Booking.com wants to change the narrative: Its growth, and especially its girth, compare favorably with Airbnb's on the apartment rental front. And Booking.com can show some digital one-up-manship too because all of its 21 million rooms are instantly confirmable.

With the Priceline Group out of the running to get into the Expedia-HomeAway sweepstakes, it appears very likely that the deal will sail through toward closing.

Wall Street is buying up HomeAway's stock with the thinking that a new bidding war with Expedia could take hold, but that's unlikely. From HomeAway CEO Brian Sharples' comments, it seems likely that some kind of sales process -- and obviously a serious vetting of the deal -- already took place.

For financial, online travel nerds and human resources nerds, here's all the fine print that's seen the light of day so far about then Expedia-HomeAway merger.