Expedia has made a deal in recent years about its stated goal of moving from being a web company to a technology platform.
Part of this shift, beyond the obvious business jargon-ness of it, has been the development of tools and services for hotel chains.
Tnooz spoke to Cyril Ranque, Expedia Group president of lodging partner services, for an update on some of the initiatives as well as a view on the current relationship between online travel agencies and hotel brands.
On Marriott Vacations, Red Lion and Best Western…
Expedia signed the deal to power Marriott Vacations about 20 months ago and Ranque says the company has seen “continuous double digit growth” on packages.
“More packages were booked in the first two weeks of January than any other two week period since Vacations by Marriott started.”
“We’re looking to expand that product and there are more chains who want to sign up.”
Best Western Europe was the first to partner with Expedia on its MeetingMarket product back in November. There are 200 hotels about to go live and earlier this week NH Hotels was revealed as the second major chain to use Expedia to power its meetings and events booking.
Ranque says the partnership with Red Lion to promote the chain’s loyalty program, also continues to be a success.
“These three products are test products we’ve done with these chain partners and the idea is to see if there is a) an appetite from the industry and chains and b) success. We’re open and we share data and based on this success we scale the capabilities to offer that to more partners.”
On one-off initiatives versus the ability to expand and scale…
Ranque says the company doesn’t necessarily think about whether an individual initiative is going to be accepted and scale but rather whether it can get multiple initiatives into the market and see what has the most potential.
