Expedia aims to revolutionize travel through technology. It operates multiple global brands across online, mobile, and other channels. Expedia has seen growth in hotel sales in East Africa. The travel industry has changed with customers now using multiple devices and channels in their purchase process. Expedia provides a large customer database but aims to tailor its approach to different types of travelers. It concludes that working together with local suppliers can drive profitability for hotels in East Africa by utilizing various booking windows, technology, merchandising and communication.
Key Takeaway: In 15 years we have grown to become the world’s single most popular travel booking company, generating more leisure and business bookings combined than any other travel agency – on or offline. We are a publically traded company whose internet birthplace makes us a travel and technology company with an established history of delivering value to our consumers and partners through our world class global brands. Our employees are passionate about travel, we are innovative and we are enterprising! The Expedia, Inc. brands continue to innovate how travelers plan, purchase and share their travel experiences. We are investing in technology to improve the experience for travelers around the globe, and to help you profitably reach those travelers. We currently have 100 localized Expedia, Inc. branded websites in 70 countries.Details on each brandExpedia - The world’s largest and best known travel brand. Full service travel agency, offering hotels, flights, vacation packages, rental cars, cruises and in-destination activities, attractions, and services.Hotels.com – The world’s leading hotel booking site, with offering the widest selections of lodging and accommodations from traditional hotels to vacation rentals. Expedia Affiliate Network - Powers booking engines for some of the world’s leading airlines and hotels, top consumer brands, high traffic websites, and more than ten thousand active affiliates. Hotwire - Leading discount travel site that negotiates deep discounts from its suppliers to help travelers book unsold hotel rooms, airline seats and rental cars. Egencia - The world’s fifth largest corporate travel company offering truly integrated corporate travel services. By combining a powerful offline and online service, Egencia delivers a corporate travel offering supported by global market expertise and best-in-class technology platformVenere – One of Europe’s leading providers of online hotel reservations, features real-time rates, availability, special offers and the best deals on the web on its more than 72,000 properties, all with the help of more than 810,000 hotel reviews. eLong – A leading provider of travel bookings and services in China, offers great deals on more than 17,000 hotels in over 600 cities around China and 130,000 properties in more than 100 countries globally, as well as flight bookings on all major airlinesLocal Expert - A leading provider of activities and destination services, both on and offline. Local Expert offers face-to-face personalized recommendations and assistance in booking events, activities, tours, attractions, and other services that travelers seek in their destinations. (As of December 2010, Local Expert in market concierge desks are available in 24 leisure destinations worldwide.)
We connect customers to your inventory at the prices that they are looking for. We continue to innovated and find ways to match customers to the right product at the right time in order to increase conversion and optimize the inventory that we display and the millions of visitors that wee it. Our tools include, surfacing the right hotel, room type and rate plan and differentiating it through content, available in more than 35 languages.Merchandising: Beyond air, hotel, and car—from helicopter tours to scuba lessons…E-mail Marketing:Designed to trigger immediate purchaseDrives high site revisit percentageCustom emails with relevant content and specialsPromotions:-Site specials integrated with e-mail, focused on destination- Flexible, last-minute promotions to help move inventoryDrives incremental volume and capacity utilization for youSearch Optimization:- External search drives to applicable pageOn-site search functionality and flexibility continually increasingConstant re-evaluation to identify optimal configurations Affiliates:- Our reach is multiplied by offering travel inventory through partnerships with more than 10,000 affiliates globallyTelesales Agents:- Approximately 18M calls fielded in 2010- Toll-free booking numbers- Calls routed by lines of business to improve conversion- Assists Internet-insecure customersMobile: Access a new generation of shoppersReach last minute bookingsADD NUMBERS!!!Content2.5M guest reviews showcase high-quality properties
Key Takeaway: One of the key benefits of partnering with Expedia is that our multi-channel and multi-platform structure allows you to capture customers when you want them at various points in the booking cycle. Additionally our promotional technology (or DRR technology) allows you to target specific customers or need dates. This technology allows you to get as pin pointed as necessary to achieve your goal. As an example if you are a hotel located in Cancun and want to target customers from the UK, booking more than 30 days in advance, traveling in March, you can do that using our promotional technology! Customers shopping and purchasing travel online visit multiple websites as they navigate through the online travel planning process. As a result, customer interaction and engagement with your property is highly dependant on your online brochure. This includes your descriptive content, images and traveler opinions. All of these factors are important to both consumers who decide to book with Expedia as well as to those consumers who first see your hotel on Expedia and choose to book elsewhere. In an effort to take advantage of everything Expedia, Inc. has to offer your hotel, communication is key. Once I know your goals we can work together to build a profitable, long-term partnership.
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