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Expedia 3.0 - Driving guest delight

December 15, 2011 | Online Travel

At Expedia, Inc.’s Partner Services Group conference last week at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, the company laid out its plans to tackle what it refers to as “Web 3.0” with a comprehensive approach to the modern, and continuously evolving, online travel marketplace.

It’s not news that the online travel landscape has changed. Internet shopping and booking has complicated revenue management, and while the big players battle it out for the most hits and the most bookings, it’s understandable that individual properties feel caught in the crossfire.

And that’s just talking about online travel agencies. Today, you have to take into account the potential impact of emerging distribution channels such as the rapidly growing mobile web to the elephant in the room, Google. At Expedia, Inc.’s Partner Services Group conference last week at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, the company laid out its plans to tackle what it refers to as “Web 3.0” with a comprehensive approach to the modern, and continuously evolving, online travel marketplace.

There’s no easy way to approach the changes in consumer behavior and the technological advances that have hit us all at once in the past half decade. Adjusting to travel behaviors in the world of social media, online review sites and a microscopic booking window is an ongoing challenge, and that’s not going to go away.

“Business is only speeding up and changing faster, and we’re seeing uncertainty around us,” says Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Expedia, Inc. “Other than the music industry, travel may have been changed the most by the Internet, but we feel that we can face this opportunistically and innovate around it.”

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