Jared Wein

Priceline dominates the online travel industry. It quietly goes about its business and continuously puts up strong results year after year, turning a once-beleaguered near-dot-com-bust into one of the most successful technology companies in the world.

As the Chinese economy has grown and opened up to the West, both domestic leisure and outbound travel have ramped significantly. At the same time, the country is still in the early stages of moving bookings from offline to online. A growing travel market and increased adoption of online bookings is a potent recipe for growth at Ctrip and the industry as a whole.

This report analyzes the state of hotel distribution with a focus on direct booking. Rather than taking the view that it’s a booking war, we believe the landscape is far more nuanced where hotels need to take a holistic approach with their distribution channels. Readers will gain insight from our interviews with over 20 executives across the hotel and online travel ecosystem along with the results from our survey of 370 hotels around the world, which was powered by Skift and Trivago.

Facebook has transformed itself from a social media site into a powerful digital media platform that is now spreading its footprint across the travel industry. Facebook’s ability to dynamically retarget consumers combined with the ads being visual, aspirational, cost-effective, and largely in-app for Facebook’s massive and highly-engaged user base will make the platform an increasingly important tool for the travel industry.

Disney’s success with its theme parks, hotels and cruise products is directly attributable to a highly-sophisticated marketing program that leverages cross-monetization of its different media businesses. It’s a case study for travel and hospitality companies on how to think and look outside of travel, when building globally successful businesses and brands.

The mechanics of metasearch technology and how travel brands use it to effectively bring attractive products to market are extremely complex. While many have tried, very few are now doing it in a meaningful way that produces attractive scale and profits. Those that succeed long term will ultimately need the right mix of technology, connectivity, user experience, market strategy, and budget. This definitive report outlines the competitive landscape along all five of these essential benchmarks.

Expedia has a lot going for it in the short to mid term but shifts in technology and consumer tastes have disrupted the travel space before, and will do so again. Dara and team will need to stay vigilant in addressing numerous vulnerabilities, especially as they go up against the big platforms including Google, Facebook, Amazon and others.