Understanding Expedia’s Brands

Expedia Group produced $107 Billion in Travel Bookings. Expedia has a number of different ways to get bookings through the many website and app brand names that they own. This post will walk through each of their different brands and business models so your properties can get the most from Expedia.

Expedia's Family of Brands

Hotel Only

This is the regular hotel search that exists on Expedia, Orbitz, Hotels.com & Travelocity where a guest would book just a hotel by itself and normally costs 15% + 3% credit card fees to get onto these channels.

Packages

Expedia Package Search

Guest’s can also search and book flights and Hotels together which performs very well for properties in fly to destinations and are also sold through deals with partners like Hawaiian Airlines.

Packages are more than 50% of all Expedia Bookings in Hawaii Expedia Market Manager

This will normally cost you another 10% to participate and perform in this program but it’s one you can’t miss and will not hurt your rate parity on other channels.

Affiliate Programs

Your properties can also be distributed to programs like American Express Travel and Citi Bank where guests use credit card points to book travel. You need to use Expedia Collect to get into these offering’s but that is totally worth it.

35% of Americans have a credit card with Travel Points Nerd Wallet

On average 40% of all bookings come through affiliates and packages in my experience with Expedia.

Corporate

Egencia also provides corporate booking tools to the biggest companies in the world with millions of business travelers that are paying with corporate money. These guests could spend lavishly on suites and if they travel regularly could become repeat customers. Properties near city centers or office parks tend to do the best with this channel.

Getting into corporate does require you to give an extra 10% off your rates

Opaque – Hotwire

The days of the Priceline negotiator are over but Hotwire remains the only true Opaque Hotel website where guests can pick a certain star hotel without knowing which one specifically to get a deal. This requires you to give away massive discounts but it could be a good channel to fill rooms that are about to sit empty

Hotwire Search

Vacation Rental

Expedia also owns Vrbo, HomeAway, and the rest of the HomeAway family of sites. Properties with kitchens can often perform very well, but you will need a separate contract with Vrbo.