Monday, August 03, 2009

Still trying to convince offline travel media that Expedia own's TripAdvisor

Below is an extract of the TravelToday daily PDF published by the Australian version of TravelWeekly (owned by Reed Business).
Expedia coup
Expedia has partnered with SeatGuru to integrate user reviews of airplane seats [sic] into the seat maps for flights sold on Expedia.com.
In case you (like TravelWeekly) have missed the last 5 years of the online travel industry, Expedia owns TripAdvisor and in May 2007 TripAdvisor bought SeatGuru.

What next TravelWeekly? Amazing news that Qantas has extended its preferred supplier relationship with Qantas Holidays. Industry shaking news that W and Sheraton hotels have agreed to exchange loyalty club points. Hold the front page news that Avis and Budget are using the same fuel supplier.

Rather than using the headline "Expedia coup", it would be more appropriate to usethe phrase "People at Expedia are returning each other's calls". But that would hardly make for an interesting headline.

PS - can only find the article in PDF form, let me know if you see it online.

8 comments:

Penny Arabiata said...

I read something recently about Virgin Blue, V-Australia and Pacific Blue forming some kind of alliance.

Tim Hughes said...

@Penny - exactly!

Chris @ Nozio said...

Oh no you have let the cat out of the bag! Expedia is trying to keep it a secret ;-)

Michael Raybman said...

Tim,

I agree that it's bad penmanship, but perhaps they meant to suggest that an acquisition does not imply product partnership. For instance, since Expedia bought TA, they haven't integrated that much TA functionality directly into expedia.com.

Tim Hughes said...

@Michael - I agree that acquisition does not mean guaranteed integration, especially in different business models. But in this case think it is clear that the journalist had no idea they are the same company

Unknown said...

To be fair Tim, one is on the West Coast and the others all the way over on the East, so they do have to coordinate to answer each others calls!

Tim Hughes said...

@Steve - true true

Kristi said...

LOL!