Expedia Competitors includes key competitors in the travel industry and booking platforms such as Booking Holdings, TripAdvisor, Kayak, and Priceline. It also includes hotel booking platforms like Hotels.com, Agoda, Trivago, and Hotwire, along with vacation rental platforms such as Airbnb, Vrbo, HomeAway, and FlipKey. These competitors offer a range of services for travelers to book accommodations and plan their trips.
Competitor
Description
Key Insights
Competitive Overlap
Differentiation
Booking Holdings
A global online travel company that owns several major travel brands, including Booking.com, Priceline, and Kayak. Booking Holdings competes with Expedia in various segments of the online travel booking market.
Booking Holdings operates multiple online travel brands, directly competing with Expedia in segments like hotel bookings, flight reservations, and vacation packages, targeting a wide range of travelers.
Both compete in the online travel booking market, offering a variety of services for travelers to book hotels, flights, and vacation packages.
Booking Holdings’ portfolio of brands and extensive global reach.
Tripadvisor
An online travel company known for its travel review platform and booking services. Tripadvisor competes with Expedia in segments such as hotel bookings, vacation rentals, and attractions.
Tripadvisor offers travel reviews and booking services, directly competing with Expedia in segments like hotel bookings and vacation rentals, focusing on user-generated content and recommendations.
Both compete in the online travel booking market, offering hotel bookings and vacation rental options, with Tripadvisor’s emphasis on user reviews and recommendations.
Tripadvisor’s reliance on user-generated content and travel insights.
Agoda (Booking Holdings)
A subsidiary of Booking Holdings, Agoda specializes in hotel bookings and accommodations in Asia and other regions. Agoda competes with Expedia in the hotel booking and accommodation segment.
Agoda offers hotel bookings and accommodations worldwide, directly competing with Expedia in segments like hotel reservations, targeting travelers seeking diverse accommodation options.
Both compete in the hotel booking and accommodation market, providing a range of options for travelers to book lodging.
Agoda’s focus on the Asian and international hotel markets.
Airbnb
An online marketplace that allows people to list, find, and book unique accommodations and travel experiences. Airbnb competes with Expedia, particularly in the vacation rental and alternative accommodation market.
Airbnb offers unique vacation rentals and alternative accommodations, competing with Expedia in segments like vacation home rentals and experiences, appealing to travelers looking for distinctive lodging options.
Both compete in the vacation rental and alternative accommodation market, with Airbnb’s focus on unique and personalized travel experiences.
Airbnb’s emphasis on home-sharing and community-based travel.
Hilton Worldwide
A global hospitality company known for its hotel brands, including Hilton, Waldorf Astoria, and DoubleTree. Hilton Worldwide competes with Expedia, primarily in the hotel bookings and accommodations sector.
Hilton Worldwide offers hotel accommodations and directly competes with Expedia in segments like hotel bookings, targeting travelers seeking stays at Hilton-branded properties.
Both compete in the hotel booking and accommodation market, with Hilton Worldwide’s focus on its own hotel brands and loyalty program.
Hilton Worldwide’s portfolio of iconic hotel brands and loyalty rewards.
Marriott International
A global hospitality company known for its hotel brands, including Marriott, Sheraton, and Ritz-Carlton. Marriott International competes with Expedia in the hotel bookings and accommodations industry.
Marriott International provides hotel accommodations and competes directly with Expedia in segments like hotel bookings, appealing to travelers looking for stays at Marriott-branded properties.
Both compete in the hotel booking and accommodation market, with Marriott International’s emphasis on its own hotel brands and loyalty program.
Marriott International’s extensive hotel portfolio and loyalty benefits.
Hotels.com (Expedia Group)
A subsidiary of Expedia Group, Hotels.com specializes in hotel bookings and accommodations worldwide. It competes directly with Expedia in the hotel booking and accommodation sector.
Hotels.com offers hotel bookings and accommodations globally, competing with Expedia in segments like hotel reservations, targeting travelers seeking various lodging options.
Both compete in the hotel booking and accommodation market, providing a range of choices for travelers to book accommodations.
Hotels.com’s focus on hotel bookings and its loyalty program.
HomeAway (Vrbo – Expedia Group)
A subsidiary of Expedia Group, HomeAway (now rebranded as Vrbo) specializes in vacation home rentals and alternative accommodations. It competes with Expedia in the vacation rental market.
HomeAway (Vrbo) offers vacation home rentals and alternative accommodations, competing with Expedia in segments like vacation rental bookings, targeting travelers seeking unique lodging options.
Both compete in the vacation rental and alternative accommodation market, with HomeAway’s (Vrbo’s) focus on vacation homes and large group accommodations.
HomeAway’s (Vrbo’s) emphasis on unique vacation rentals and whole-home stays.
Expedia Group
Expedia Group operates multiple travel brands, including Expedia.com, Hotels.com, and Vrbo. It competes with itself in various segments of the online travel booking market.
Expedia Group’s various brands offer a range of travel services, and they may compete with each other in segments like hotel bookings, vacation rentals, and flight reservations.
Expedia Group’s different brands may compete in multiple travel booking segments, offering a variety of travel services to consumers.
Each brand within Expedia Group may have distinct features and offerings.
Competitive Landscape in Travel Booking: Expedia faces robust competition from various players in the travel industry, including Booking Holdings, TripAdvisor, Kayak, and Priceline. The challenge lies in offering comprehensive travel solutions while differentiating itself in terms of user experience and value-added services.
Diverse Services Offered: Expedia’s competitors include a mix of travel booking platforms, hotel booking platforms, and vacation rental platforms. This diversity reflects the varied needs of travelers and the range of options available in the market.
Booking Holdings: As one of the major competitors, Booking Holdings offers a wide array of travel services, including hotel reservations, flights, car rentals, and more. Its global presence and comprehensive offerings make it a significant rival.
TripAdvisor: Known for its user-generated reviews and recommendations, TripAdvisor provides a platform for travelers to research and plan trips. Its influence in guiding travelers’ decisions poses competition to Expedia.
Kayak: A metasearch engine, Kayak aggregates travel information from various sources to help users find the best deals on flights, hotels, car rentals, and more. Its focus on price comparison is a unique aspect of competition.
Priceline: Priceline’s “Name Your Own Price” feature and Express Deals have set it apart by offering travelers the opportunity to save on bookings by accepting undisclosed hotel details.
Hotel Booking Platforms: Expedia’s competitors in the hotel booking sector, such as Hotels.com, Agoda, Trivago, and Hotwire, highlight the intense competition in this segment. Offering competitive prices and a user-friendly interface are key factors.
Vacation Rental Platforms:Airbnb, Vrbo, HomeAway, and FlipKey represent the competitive landscape in vacation rentals. These platforms focus on offering unique and personalized accommodations, attracting travelers looking for more immersive experiences.
User Experience and Innovation: In a crowded market, providing seamless user experiences and innovative features can help Expedia stand out and attract a loyal customer base.
Market Trends and Consumer Preferences: Staying updated on travel trends, such as the growing preference for sustainable and experiential travel, can give Expedia a competitive edge by tailoring its offerings to changing customer demands.
Partnerships and Collaborations: Forming partnerships with airlines, hotels, and other service providers can enhance Expedia’s offerings and provide travelers with bundled packages, potentially setting it apart from its competitors.
Mobile App and Technology: With the rise of mobile booking and app-based travel planning, Expedia must focus on providing a seamless and feature-rich mobile experience to remain competitive.
Customer Trust and Safety: In the era of online transactions, maintaining customer trust and ensuring data security are paramount. Competitors that excel in this area can gain a competitive advantage.
Airbnb is a platform business model making money by charging guests a service fee between 5% and 15% of the reservation, while the commission from hosts is generally 3%. For instance, on a $100 booking per night set by a host, Airbnb might make as much as $15, split between host and guest fees.
The Airbnbstory began in 2008 when two friends shared their accommodation with three travelers looking for a place to stay. Just over a decade later, it is estimated that the company now accounts for over 20% of the vacation rental industry. As a travel platform, Airbnb competes with other brands like Booking.com, VRBO, FlipKey, and given its massive amount of traffic from Google. Also, platforms like Google Travel can be considered potential competitors able to cannibalize part of Airbnb’s market.
As a peer-to-peer platform, once the transaction between host and guest goes through, Airbnb will collect a fee from both key players. For example, from a $100 booking per night set by the host, Airbnb might collect $3 as a hosting fee. While it might increase the price for the guest at $116 ($16 above the price set by the host) to collect its guest fees of $12 and taxes for the remaining amount.
In 2022, Airbnb generated $63.2 billion in gross booking value on over 393.7 Million Nights and Experiences Booked, an average revenue per booking of $161, $8.4 in revenue, and an average service fee of 13.3%.
Airbnb take rate is the percentage fee that the company gathers from hosts and guests on each booking that happens through the platform. The take rate for Airbnb fluctuated over the years, with a peak in 2020, at a 14.1% take rate and a 13.3% take rate in 2022.
Airbnb makes money by collecting a take rate on each transaction on the platform. In 2022, Airbnb processed over $63 billion in gross booking value, which translated into $8.4 billion in revenue. Airbnb also generated $1.9 billion in profits, and $3.4 billion in free cash flow in 2022.
Airbnb is primarily owned by its co-founders: Brian Chesky, with 76,407,686 Class B shares, which gives him 29.1% of ownership; Nathan Blecharczyk, with 232,306 Class A and 64,646,713 Class B, which give him 25.3%, and Joe Gebbia, which has 5,113,865 Class A and 58,023,452 Class B, which give him 22.9% ownership.
A storyboard is a linear sequence of illustrations used in animation to develop a broader story. A storyboard process is now used also in business to understand and map customers’ experience and enable the growth of the company using that process.
Airbnb arbitrage is a business model where the renter of a house or apartment sub-lets the property to Airbnb users. This is a model where the Airbnb arbitrageur can transform a long-term rental, with the main property owner, into a short-term rental, with higher rates and margins.
An accessory dwelling unit (ADU) is a term used to describe a secondary house or apartment located on the same plot of land as a larger, primary place of residence. This has become an industry for its own sake, with the potential to become the next trillion-dollar industry.
Samara is a manufacturer of prefab accessory dwelling units (ADUs) that can be installed and operational in a matter of hours. It started as an R&D unit of Airbnb in 2016. And it eventually was spun off and run by Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia, who now runs it full-time.
Booking Holdings is the company the controls six main brands that comprise Booking.com, priceline.com, KAYAK, agoda.com, Rentalcars.com, and OpenTable. Over 76% of the company revenues in 2017 came primarily via travel reservations commissions and travel insurance fees. Almost 17% came from merchant fees, and the remaining revenues came from advertising earned via KAYAK. As a distributionstrategy, the company spent over $4.5 billion in performance-based and brand advertising.
Trivago is a search and discovery travel platform part of Expedia Group. Trivago is widely known as a trusted hotel comparison service. Trivago doesn’t charge based on bookings but rather through a cost-per-click (CPC) model, monetized when a hotel searcher clicks one of its advertiser listings. This referral revenue comprises most of Trivago’s income. Trivago also has another minor revenue stream via subscriptions to its Business Studio, a tool that helps hoteliers track impression and click data associated with their properties.
Born in 1996 as a travel platform of Microsoft, it would be spun off later on. Expedia became among the largest online travel agencies (OTAs) which comprise a set of brands that go from Hotels.com, Vrbo, Orbits, CheapTickets, ebookers, Travelocity, Trivago, and others. The company follows a multi-brandstrategy.
Kayak is an online travel agency and search engine founded in 2004 by Steve Hafner and Paul M. English as a Travel Search Company and acquired by Booking Holdings in 2013 for $2.1 billion. The company makes money via an advertising model based on cost per click, cost per acquisition, and advertising placements.
OpenTable is an American online restaurant reservation system founded by Chuck Templeton. During the late 90s, it provided one of the first automated, real-time reservation systems. The company was acquired by Booking Holding back in 2014, for $2.6 billion. Today OpenTable makes money via subscription plans, referral fees, and in-dining with its first restaurant, as an experiment in Miami, Florida.
OYO’s business model is a mixture of platform and brand, where the company started primarily as an aggregator of homes across India, and it quickly moved to other verticals, from leisure to co-working and corporate travel. In a sort of octopus business strategy of expansion to cover the whole spectrum of short-term real estate.
TripAdvisor’s business model matches the demand for people looking for a travel experience with supply from travel partners around the world providing travel accommodations and experiences. When this match is created TripAdvisor collects commission from partners on a CPC and CPM basis. The non-hotel revenue comprises experiences, restaurants, and rentals.
Trivago is a search and discovery travel platform part of Expedia Group. Trivago is widely known as a trusted hotel comparison service. Trivago doesn’t charge based on bookings but rather through a cost-per-click (CPC) model, monetized when a hotel searcher clicks one of its advertiser listings. This referral revenue comprises most of Trivago’s income. Trivago also has another minor revenue stream via subscriptions to its Business Studio, a tool that helps hoteliers track impression and click data associated with their properties.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
