After several slow weeks in the industry, this past week featured a number of important updates, including earnings releases and calls from Booking Holdings and Expedia Group. Transcripts from the two companies’ earnings calls are attached. Enjoy.
-
- Expedia Scores a Win with Walmart + Travel. While Expedia may have lost an important relationship with its recent termination of Hopper, Expedia was able to make up for some of that lost B2B traffic with a newly announced partnership with Walmart. According to the companies’ announcement, Expedia will be providing the retailer with hotel, airline, rental car and activities inventories. Walmart members who use Walmart to book travel will receive Walmart cash (up to 5% for hotels) back. Users of Expedia’s B2B platform (or any other similar B2B platform) should give some thought as to how changes like the recent Hopper termination and now Walmart addition might affect their traffic through the platform and their performance against any contracted performance metrics.
- AH&LA Voices Support for Proposed Federal Resort Fee Legislation. By now, most everyone is familiar with recent federal legislation proposed by U.S. Senators Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Moran (R-Kan.). If you’ve not read the proposed legislation, click here to view an early initial draft. To many pundits surprise (several suggested that hoteliers would never get behind the legislation), the American Hotel & Lodging Association has come out strongly in favor of the Act.
- Expedia Group and Bookings Holdings Enjoy Strong Second Quarters. Both Expedia Group and Bookings Holdings reported strong second quarter results last week. Even with record levels of gross travel bookings in the second quarter, Booking Holdings expects that it may see even better results later this year (based on July hotel booking activity that represents a 20% YOY increase). Expedia also enjoyed a record breaking quarter (gross bookings and revenue), though revenues fell short of analysts’ expectations. Earnings calls provided insight into a number of ongoing initiatives within both companies, including ongoing B2B efforts (Expedia), the launch of a single, unified loyalty program (Expedia), the introduction and use of Artificial Intelligence (both) and the connected trip (Booking).
- Expedia Scores a Win with Walmart + Travel. While Expedia may have lost an important relationship with its recent termination of Hopper, Expedia was able to make up for some of that lost B2B traffic with a newly announced partnership with Walmart. According to the companies’ announcement, Expedia will be providing the retailer with hotel, airline, rental car and activities inventories. Walmart members who use Walmart to book travel will receive Walmart cash (up to 5% for hotels) back. Users of Expedia’s B2B platform (or any other similar B2B platform) should give some thought as to how changes like the recent Hopper termination and now Walmart addition might affect their traffic through the platform and their performance against any contracted performance metrics.
|
PrincipalGreg is Chair of the firm's national Hospitality, Travel & Tourism practice, which is directed at the variety of matters faced by hospitality and travel industry members, including purchase and sales agreements, management ...
RSS Feed
Follow us on Twitter
Follow us on LinkedIn
About the Editor
Greg Duff founded and chairs Foster Garvey’s national Hospitality, Travel & Tourism group. His practice largely focuses on operations-oriented matters faced by hospitality industry members, including sales and marketing, distribution and e-commerce, procurement and technology. Greg also serves as counsel and legal advisor to many of the hospitality industry’s associations and trade groups, including AH&LA, HFTP and HSMAI.
