Articles tagged “priceline”

If you thought Priceline was the largest publicly traded travel company in the world by market cap, you'd be very wrong. Two Taiwanese airlines and a global hotel and casino business boast greater bragging rights.

The author points out an often-overlooked fact that Priceline/Booking.com may now be putting pressure on Expedia and Orbitz in a mature market, the U.S., with the Booking.com advertising campaign that began earlier this year. Hotwire is already engaged in an offline advertising blitz to answer Priceline's inroads, and Booking.com's campaign makes things even testier.

With Priceline buying Kayak, Expedia investing in Trivago, and TripAdvisor launching hotel metasearch, all the big players have a piece of the pie, and this will have many delightful twists and turns.

Now that the merger has the OK, it will be fascinating to watch how the pioneer in user-generated content will be able to best leverage the metasearch operation.

Priceline is anxious to see what it terms its Booking.com "experiment" in the U.S., replete with offline branding campaign, succeed. Given the volatily in subsidiary Booking.com's core European market, growth in the U.S., alongside Priceline.com, would serve as a hedge against Europe's troubles.

Let the games begin.

If Priceline's stats hold up industrywide, then airlines know that their mobile apps and mobile sites will have to cater to younger travelers who seek a lot more flexibility.

Priceline is the only major online travel agency selling American Airlines' ancillary services, and it will soon be doing so for United Airlines, as well.