The following document contains media citations and links to articles about following major M&A deals

in online travel:

Travelocity -> Sabre Holding in 2002 for $420M

Hotwire -> Expedia in 2003 for $663M

Orbitz Inc. -> Cedant Corp (future Travelport) in 2004 for $1112M

Booking.com -> Priceline in 2005 for $150M

ebookers -> Cedant Corp (future Travelport) in 2005 for $324M

Agoda -> Priceline in 2007 for $170M

Venere -> Expedia in 2007 for $475M

ITA Software -> Google in 2011 for $700M

Kayak -> Priceline in 2012 for $1.8B

Trivago -> Expedia in 2012 for $632M

Opentable -> Priceline in 2014 for $2.6B

Viator -> Tripadvisor in 2014 for $200M

Travelocity -> Sabre Holding in 2002 for $420M

«American Airlines began offering customer access to its electronic reservation system, SABRE,

in 1978 to travel agencies, and in the mid-80s on the CompuServe Information Service to

consumers under the "EAASY SABRE"[3][4] brand name. This service was extended to America

Online in the 1990s.

Travelocity was created in 1996 as a subsidiary of Sabre Holdings, itself a subsidiary of

American Airlines, and was run by long-time Sabre I.T. executive Terry Jones (businessman).

As one of the pioneers of web-based disintermediation, Travelocity.com was the first website

that allowed consumers themselves not only to access Sabre's fare and schedule information, but

also to reserve, book, and purchase tickets without the help of a travel agent or broker. In

addition to airfares, the site also permits consumers to book hotel rooms, rental cars, cruises and

packaged vacations.

Travelocity gained momentum after AOL's travel portal became associated with the brand in

1999. In 2000, Sabre negotiated a merger of Travelocity with another early web travel company,

Preview Travel. The resulting company was independently quoted on the NASDAQ exchange,

with Sabre continuing to own around 70 percent of the combined company's outstanding stock.

In 2002, with Travelocity's fortunes suffering from competition including Expedia and Orbitz,

Sabre consummated a tender offer for the remainder of the outstanding shares in Travelocity and

remerged the business into Sabre as a subsidiary. Jones left the company shortly afterward».

(Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelocity)

Hotwire -> Expedia in 2003 for $663M

Hotwire.com joins Expedia, Hotels.com under InterActiveCorp wing (Computerworld, 2003)

«Hotels use Hotwire to unload rooms at that might otherwise go unoccupied when the market is

soft and thus Expedia will display their offerings in select markets, when rooms are available and

when its revenue-management algorithms give a green light.

In theory, the fact that Hotwire and now Expedia won’t display brand names for these kinds of

offerings up-front means the brands and their published pricing won’t take a hit.

But, won’t mixing published and opaque offerings be a drain on the higher published rates

displayed on Expedia.com?

Morrey says the published rate and opaque offerings likely will attract different sets of

customers.

“We believe this will be very incremental to both Expedia and our partners,” Morrey says.

Expedia’s new opaque program, powered by Hotwire, will be a US hotel program for now, and

Expedia won’t divulge any plans to expand the program internationally».

Expedia integrates Hotwire distressed inventory in hotel-booking path (Tnooz, 2011)

Orbitz Inc. -> Cedant Corp (future Travelport) in 2004 for $1112M

Cendant buying Orbitz.com in $1.25B deal (Computerworld, 2004)

Booking.com -> Priceline in 2005 for $150M

«A recent profile of Priceline in Fortune magazine touched on some reasons for the success of

the acquisition.

Europe was an unexpected cash cow. Europeans spend many more weeks and weekends on vacations than Americans, meaning the opportunity for extracting repeat business from satisfied customers was much greater than in the US.

Booking.com’s results were heavily driven by the agent model, which Europeans were familiar with. Priceline averages a 15% commission on each room reserved, analysts say, and payment is usually collected at the time of the hotel stay.

After the merger, Priceline resisted the temptation to bring the company onto its US-based merchant model. It also didn’t disrupt the entrepreneurial structure in place at its takeover target.

In another perk for Booking.com, the European hospitality market has been far less consolidated than in the US, with far fewer hotel chains and far more independents who often struggle to market their businesses».

Why Priceline’s purchase of Booking.com was the most profitable travel deal of the 2000s (Tnooz, 02.10.2012)

ebookers -> Cedant Corp (future Travelport) in 2005 for $324M

«"We haven't bought ebookers in order to make job cuts but to grow what it's already got," said

Mr Wilson. "We bought the business with the intention to grow it."

Michael Healy, finance director of ebookers, who is staying with the business after its sale to

Cendant, said becoming part of a larger group was "a new stage" for the company.

"From an ebookers point of view, it's a good deal for our shareholders, a good deal for our staff,

our customers as well as our suppliers," he added».

Ebookers chief gets £92m from sale to Cendant (Guardian, 03.12.2014)

Agoda -> Priceline in 2007 for $170M

"We believe that Agoda, while relatively small today, will be an important part of

priceline.com's expansion into Asia," said priceline.com President and Chief Executive Officer

Jeffery H. Boyd. "With priceline.com's expertise, worldwide hotel inventories and customer

demand, we see an opportunity to leverage Agoda and offer the most complete and compelling

inventory and content to customers traveling in Asia."

"Online travel is still a relatively nascent industry in many Asian countries," said Glenn Fogel,

priceline.com's Managing Director, Corporate Development and International. "However, we

believe the time is right for priceline.com to begin growing our presence in the Asia Pacific

region, and Agoda gives us the ability to do so with a team of skilled professionals on the ground

in this important region."

"Agoda's mission is to make booking hotels in Asia easy and affordable for customers around the

globe," said Agoda's Chief Executive Officer Michael Kenny. "We are very excited to be part of

the priceline.com team that shares our same commitment to customers. We believe that the

emerging markets of Asia, where Agoda is based, are particularly promising as Internet usage,

credit card adoption and domestic economies continue to grow."

Priceline.com Acquires Asian Online Hotel Reservation Service Agoda Company (Agoda, 2007)

Venere -> Expedia in 2007 for $475M

“Dara Khosrowshahi, President and CEO of Expedia, Inc.:

Acquiring Venere will bring a well-known, respected European consumer brand to the Expedia

portfolio. Additionally, it will immediately expand our supply footprint in Europe, the Middle

East and Africa, and enable Expedia to diversify our business model approach to hotel partners

worldwide.

Marco Ficarra, CEO of Venere Net S.p.A.:

We are thrilled at the prospect of becoming part of Expedia because our dedication to offering

superior service to travelers via our extensive network of hotels and Bed and Breakfasts is a

great fit with the most respected group of brands in travel. In addition, our team of passionate

travel professionals located in Rome, London and Paris will complement Expedia’s global team,

as we continue to provide hotels new ways to optimize their distribution mix».

Expedia to Buy Venere.com (Venere.com, 2008)

ITA Software -> Google in 2011 for $700M

«On July 1, 2010, Google announced an agreement to acquire ITA Software, a Cambridge,

Massachusetts flight information software company, for $700 million, subject to adjustments.

Google’s acquisition of ITA Software will create a new, easier way for users to find better flight information online, which should encourage more users to make their flight purchases online.

The acquisition will benefit passengers, airlines and online travel agencies by making it easier for users to comparison shop for flights and airfares and by driving more potential customers to airlines’ and online travel agencies’ websites. Google won’t be setting airfare prices and has no plans to sell airline tickets to consumers.

Because Google doesn’t currently compete against ITA Software, the deal will not change existing market shares. We are very excited about ITA Software’s QPX business, and we’re looking forward to working with current and future customers. Google will honor all existing agreements, and we’re also enthusiastic about adding new partners».

Facts about Google’s acquisition of ITA Software (Google, 2010)

Additional opinions and links included on «Facts about Google’s acquisition of ITA Software»

page.

Kayak -> Priceline in 2012 for $1.8B

“Priceline CEO and president Jeff Boyd says:

“Kayak has built a strong brand in online travel research and their track record of profitable

growth is demonstrative of their popularity with consumers and value to advertisers,

“Kayak also has world class technology and a tradition of innovation in building great user

interfaces across multiple platforms and devices.”

<…>

Kayak CEO and co-founder Steve Hafner adds:

“Paul English and I started Kayak eight years ago to create the best place to plan and book travel.

“We’re excited to join the world’s premier online travel company. The Priceline Group’s global

reach and expertise will accelerate our growth and help us further develop as a company.”

Priceline buys Kayak for $1.8 billion (Tnooz, 2012)

«I think that the purchase could be seen as a strategic manoeuvre to drive Google cost out of the

business model and have Priceline and its affiliates dominating travel search.

An often overlooked piece of information is that Priceline is one of Google’s biggest customer’s,

having spent $375.2 million in online advertising just in the third quarter of 2012. Priceline may

be using Kayak as a way to bypass Google and consequently save up to $1 billion annually that

it spends on Google.

Jeff Boyd, Priceline’s chief executive, commented at the time of the acquisition that the new

owner “can be helpful with Kayak’s plans to build a global online travel brand”, especially in the

light that Google is “rearranging” its traffic flows towards Google products to the detriment of

others. In other words: game on».

What does the Priceline-Kayak deal (and Google lurking in the background) mean for hotel

marketing? (Tnooz, 2012)

«Kayak IPOed just a few months ago, on July 20, with a debut price of $26 per share. It closed

on that first day of trading at $33 per share. Over the last 3.5 months, the price has fluctuated

between $27 and $36.

The Priceline offer of $40 per share represents a 29% premium to its closing price, but only a

13% premium off of its close just four days ago when these negotiations were likely nearly

complete (and an 8% premium off of its all-time high in early October).

Priceline’s high market capitalization makes the premium very manageable. While the stock

dropped 2% after the announcement, it has a market cap of $31 billion, 4x that of its biggest

competitor, Expedia, in part because of a price-sales ratio 3x that of the rival OTA.

That stock price certainly makes it easier to make acquisitions such as this, where $1.3 billion of

the cost was in equity».

Priceline-Kayak deal: Marketing expertise and global footprint at heart of $1.8 billion takeover

(Tnooz, 2012)

«Metasearch site Kayak acquisition on May 21, 2013, has been a net gain. But the executives

didn’t offer comparable metrics of net margin to the group’s other brands or break out what they

meant by saying it is “nicely profitable.”

Increased advertising placements by Priceline brands on Kayak since the site’s acquisition

helped boost growth, they said.

Kayak has helped the group improve its number of air transaction numbers in particular,

executives said.

The inclusion of Kayak in results added about 7% of growth for the quarterly results — a share

boost that it said was disproportionately high for the first quarter relative to its expectations for

Kayak’s contribution later in the year.

Huston said that metasearch is an important channel for the company — growing as a source of

demand. But meta is not “dramatically” increasing as a proportion of the sources of demand for

the group.

Huston says it sees that meta is becoming a more important channel for all the OTA groups.

Kayak earns more of its revenue from click-based advertising rather than from transactions

booked. It spends less on advertising than Priceline’s other businesses, improving the group’s

overall marketing efficiency».

Priceline boosts its revenue, thanks to Kayak, but says no to TripAdvisor’s instant booking

(Tnooz, 2014)

“I would say that Kayak, since the day we acquired it, has exceeded our expectations from a

profit standpoint,” Huston said. “And I’m really proud of the work that Steve [Hafner] and his

teams have done. I would say we are not as aggressively investing. We certainly don’t want

to invest at a loss to build the Kayak business, so we have done a lot of experimentation and

we feel pretty good about the results in particular in Europe.”

“The other area that I’m really proud of at Kayak is the product continues to improve. We get

great accolades from the customers who use Kayak and the investments that we’re making there

seem to be at least from the data seem to be paying off very well and we’re still very optimistic

that there is more that we can do at the Kayak investment over time but to-date, I would

say [we’re] overall quite pleased and beyond our expectations but look to see the effect of

the various experiments that are going on and our ability to profitably roll this business out

to more parts of the world.”

Priceline Downplays Kayak While Expedia Gets Aggressive With Trivago (Skift, 2014)

Trivago -> Expedia in 2012 for $632M

«What the analysts asked:

In terms of protection against Google, Trivago is seen as a ‘strong asset that adds more fuel to the fire’ in Europe with two-thirds of consumers recognising the brand which is not overly dependent on the search giant

Proposed acquisition also ‘diversifies’ Expedia’s traffic sources but it will continue to invest in all marketing channels including Google and Kayak (post Priceline acquisition).

Trivago provides more exposure in Europe, is already one of the ‘fastest growing and large variable channels’ for Expedia

Building relationships with hotels directly has been part of Trivago strategy for a while and ‘hotel direct’ business has increased in ‘relevance’

No plans to display Expedia more prominently within Trivago meta results and no immediate plans for a direct booking path as lines between OTA and metasearch increasingly blur

On potential synergies or benefits of the proposed acquisition, Expedia describes it as more of a sharing of best practises similar to strategy with TripAdvisor. Trivago analytics seen as first rate while Expedia can help on search engine marketing and optimisation

No plans to add car rental or air products.

Expedia president and CEO Dara Khosrowshahi says:

“The Trivago team built one of the largest, fastest growing and most well known travel sites in

Europe conducting more than 100 million hotel searches annually through a culture focused on

developing great products, building a strong brand and promoting partners’ businesses.

“These attributes closely align with our Expedia, Inc. strategy and values and we are thrilled to

have them join our portfolio.”

Rolf Schromgens, Trivago co-founder and managing director, adds:

“Our passion and focus will remain on independently evolving our comprehensive and

individualized hotel search. We will stay committed to our mission: To empower consumers to

find their ideal hotel at the lowest possible rate.”

Expedia pays $632 million for majority stake in Trivago, let the travel search games begin

(Tnooz, 2012)

«On the plus side, Trivago performed well (growing 80% year over year) and eLong expanded

aggresively in Asia.

Trivago added 11 points of growth to sales and marketing in Expedia Inc’s performance, so

things would have been worse for Expedia Inc without its acquisition of the European brand last

December.

Expedia Inc assumes that Trivago will become net profitable within the second half. Trivago’s

model relies heavily on TV advertising to build up a brand, so right now it is requiring more

incremental investment than it’s delivering in net revenue. Trivago is currently in 39 countries

and the plan is to make it broadly global.

Expedia shifted marketing dollars away from TripAdvisor toward marketing its new acquisition

of Trivago as well as of eLong».

Expedia admits that TripAdvisor and Booking.com are hurting it hard (Tnooz, 2013)

“How is metasearch performing in the Expedia Inc group?

Meta has been performing extremely well for us. Over the past year, we have been investing

heavily in the Trivago brand. You see it all over the place.

Every time I go to the gym, the Trivago Guy is on every TV channel.

The Trivago guy is even more famous than we ever expected.

Outside the US, Trivago is the fastest growing scale metasearch player out there. It’s in 49

countries. It’s the biggest meta brand in Europe and we want it to be the biggest globally.

From our own core brands, Expedia and Hotels.com, metasearch is one of our fastest growing

big channels. We have plenty of fast growing small channels for growing hotel volume, but you

want fast-growing big channels, and Trivago is one of them».

Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi on what’s working, what’s not (Tnooz, 2014)

“Expedia Goes All-In for Trivago

In contrast to Kayak’s prospects within the Priceline Group, Trivago is leading the charge within

Expedia Inc., which is “aggressively” investing in the hotel metasearch company’s expansion.

One of the benefits for Expedia Inc. is that it is losing marketing clout within hotel-metasearcher

TripAdvisor because Expedia refuses to participate in TripAdvisor’s book-on-TripAdvisor

feature, and Trivago is helping Expedia make up for the lost clicks it needs for brands such as

Expedia.com, Hotels.com and Venere.

Speaking during Expedia’s third quarter earnings call last week, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said:

“We continue to invest aggressively in expanding our Trivago brand worldwide and are

very encouraged with the scale and growth that we’re seeing in the U.S., Canada, Australia and

certain Asia Pacific markets, such as Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. Trivago’s growth also

helps our core OTA (online travel agency) growth.”

In fact, Expedia reported that Trivago’s revenue grew 50% year over year in the third quarter,

and that Expedia Inc.’s advertising and media business — the heart of which is Trivago — has

notched $450 million in revenue over the 12 months ending September 30, 2014.

“And then the Trivago team has been very aggressively investing in marketing and building that

brand on a global basis and doing it successfully,” Khosrowshahi said. “And I think, at this

point, they have moved from … their European core, nicely into North America and are now

experimenting in markets in Asia Pacific, markets in Latin America etc. that are pretty

interesting markets and we’re starting to see some pretty good trends in.”

In the U.S. sometimes it seems as though you can’t avoid Trivago’s advertisements on TV and

similar campaigns are taking place in other markets around the world.

Khosrowshahi doesn’t expect Trivago to continue growing its revenue at a 50% clip, but added

“we do anticipate that Trivago is going to be a nice growth driver for us over the next couple of

years.”

Priceline Downplays Kayak While Expedia Gets Aggressive With Trivago (Skift, 2014)

Opentable -> Priceline in 2014 for $2.6B

«The Priceline Group officially completed its $2.6 billion acquisition of OpenTable, which

becomes the sixth high-profile brand within the group, joining Booking.com, Priceline.com,

Agoda, Kayak and RentalCars.com.

“OpenTable is a premium online brand with significant global potential and we couldn’t be more

excited to welcome the team to The Priceline Group family,” said Darren Huston, CEO of the

Priceline Group, July 24. “We look forward to supporting OpenTable’s growth, through both

enriched restaurant partnerships and innovative experiences for our collective customers.”

Priceline Group Completes $2.6 Billion OpenTable Acquisition (Skift, 2014)

“In evaluating the Merger Agreement and the transactions contemplated thereby, including the

Offer and the Merger, and recommending that the stockholders accept the Offer and tender their

Shares to Acquisition Sub pursuant to the Offer, the Company Board consulted with the

Company’s senior management and representatives of the Company’s outside legal counsel,

Latham & Watkins, and the Company’s financial advisor, Qatalyst, respectively, and considered

and analyzed a wide and complex range of factors. This included, without limitation, review of

information regarding selected precedent transactions consisting of certain travel/other vertical

transactions and other Internet transactions announced since 2004 and 2008, respectively, based

on publicly available information regarding such transactions. Such information was included in

slides provided by Qatalyst to the Company Board.

The selected travel/other vertical transactions were:

The selected other Internet transactions were:

Based on these consultations, considerations and analyses, and the factors discussed below, the

Company Board concluded that entering into the Merger Agreement with Parent and Acquisition

Sub would yield the highest value reasonably available for the Company’s stockholders and is

fair to and in the best interests of the Company’s stockholders.”

By amending and restating the table set forth in the section entitled “The Solicitation or

Recommendation—Certain Financial Forecasts” as follows:

By adding the following text immediately below the table set forth in the section entitled “The

Solicitation or Recommendation—Certain Financial Forecasts”:

“(1) Adjusted EBITDA represents earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization,

stock-based compensation and other non-recurring charges.

(2) Non-GAAP Operating Income adjusts GAAP operating income to exclude costs associated

with stock-based compensation, amortization of intangibles, and transaction fees and expenses.

(3) Non-GAAP Net Operating Profit After Tax (“Non-GAAP NOPAT”) represents Non-GAAP

Operating Income, less cash taxes.

(4) Unlevered Free Cash Flow represents Non-GAAP NOPAT less capital expenditures plus

depreciation plus changes in working capital.

In addition, a summary of certain third-party research analysts’ projections regarding the

Company is set forth below. Such projections are based upon median consensus estimates as of

June 11, 2014.

By amending and restating clause (b) set forth in the section entitled “The Solicitation or

Recommendation— Illustrative Discounted Cash Flow Analysis” as follows:

“(b) the implied net present value of a corresponding terminal value of the Company, calculated

by multiplying the estimated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization, stock-

based compensation and other non-recurring charges (“Adjusted EBITDA”) in calendar year

2019, based on the Financial Forecasts, by a range of multiples of enterprise value to next-

twelve-months estimated Adjusted EBITDA of 11.0x to 17.0x selected by Qatalyst based on its

professional judgment (such multiples corresponding to a range of implied perpetuity growth

rates from 4.2% to 9.2% and a range of implied multiples of enterprise value to next-twelve-

months revenue of 4.7x to 7.3x) and discounted to March 31, 2014 using the same range of

discount rates used in item (a) above;”

By amending and restating the tables set forth in the section entitled “The Solicitation or

Recommendation— Selected Companies Analysis” as follows:

By adding the following tables immediately below the tables set forth in the section entitled “The

Solicitation or Recommendation— Selected Companies Analysis”:

By amending and restating the second paragraph of the section entitled “The Solicitation or

Recommendation— Selected Companies Analysis” as follows:

“Based upon research analyst consensus estimates for calendar year 2015, and using the closing

prices as of June 11, 2014 for shares of the selected companies, Qatalyst calculated, among other

things, the implied fully diluted enterprise value divided by the estimated EBITDA for calendar

year 2015, which are referred to herein as the “CY2015E EBITDA Multiples,” for each group of

the selected companies. The low, high, median and mean CY2015E EBITDA Multiples among

the selected travel/local companies analyzed were 8.2x, 47.1x, 17.8x and 21.5x, respectively,

among the selected other consumer verticals were 10.8x, 58.1x, 16.2x, and 22.2x, respectively,

among the selected eCommerce companies were 7.8x, 39.4x, 19.5x and 20.3x, respectively, and

among the selected consumer leader companies were 5.7x, 52.7x, 19.5x and 20.5x, respectively.

The implied fully diluted enterprise value divided by the estimated EBITDA for calendar year

2015 for the Company was 15.5x based on the Street Projections and 15.5x based on the

Financial Forecasts.”

Priceline, OpenTable Disclose More Drama About Sale In Shareholder Lawsuit Settlement (Skift, 2014)

«Priceline, as we have seen with almost all of its M&A activity, expands into new markets via

acquisitions.

Starting as a travel discounter, it managed to turn itself into the most influential player on online

travel with acquisitions of Booking.com, Kayak and, more recentlly, Opentable.

The deals which got fewer headlines, but also illustrate the direction in which company is

moving, were the acquisitions of Hotel Ninjas and Buuteeq – both services at the heart of hotel

marketing and distribution.

A large body of opinion suggests such moves are ensuring Priceline does not fade away into

mediocrity, unlike other OTAs who have tended to become rather “useless intermediaries”.

I wouldn’t agree with the words about the usefulness or otherwise of its OTA rivals, but we see

consistently how Priceline makes its business more sustainable using acquisitions.

The OpenTable acquisition is certainly a move towards covering the full trip experience (it was

also its biggest deal to date at $2.6 billion, but perhaps also a sign of Priceline searching for

opportunities in other travel related verticals.

It’s notable that some people claim Priceline Group CEO Darren Huston is more aggressive than

his predeccesor. It could also just be that right deals have come along at the right time.

Still, it bucked the trend earlier this year when it didn’t get its wallet out and, instead, opted to

launch its dedicated take on the vacation rental sector with Villas.com».

Three online travel giants and three approaches to the new travel ecosystem (Tnooz, 2014)

«In some regards, the OpenTable deal was about the connectivity piece – getting access to

these point-of-sale systems. How do you see this acquisition fitting into Priceline’s business?

I think the connectivity is a sub-point. There’s the bigger point, which is that we’re leaders in

building out an accommodation marketplace, and restaurants is another adjacent large

marketplace. And there are a lot of similar characteristics related to what it takes to win in that

marketplace.

Certainly, large hotels are not like restaurants because they have revenue managers and people

have different jobs. But when you get to smaller properties, they are a lot alike – there’s a single

owner, and he’s the revenue manager, and the marketer and the sales guy. And they’re cash flow

businesses that are often systems-challenged. Restaurants have a lot of that.

In the case of OpenTable, to build their marketplace, they had to start with B2B software

because restaurants didn’t have the technology. So they spent many years basically being a B2B

software company that had to sometimes bring bookings in – really, just trying to get restaurants

up to speed with technology. Now they are focusing more on the B2C side – how do we optimize

and help guests find OpenTable restaurants?

In a sense, Booking.com is a B2C company because the most sophisticated hotels have

everything they needed and we just built an extranet – but now as we have gotten into longer-tail

accommodations, we have to get more into B2B. And that’s why we bought Buuteeq, as we’re

building a cloud-based software system. The match between what we’re doing as a company and

what they’re doing as a company is quite tight.

There’s other things of course, which include that they are very strong in America and need to be

more global – which is what we are quite good at. And there’s a bit of it related to cross-

promotion. Travelers are diners and if a restaurant is filled with locals, getting a couple extra

tabletops during a night from some guys from China or from Canada could be seen as

incrementally positive to the business.

OpenTable was an adjacent marketplace that operates a heck of lot like the market that we’re in.

Our whole company is about how you take friction out of local experience, and that’s how we

think. That’s the kind of people we hire. And it’s a really strong cultural mesh with what

OpenTable is trying to do.

And will the integration piece include seamless booking – for example, restaurants nearby

popping up in the mobile app for direct booking of restaurants?

I don’t think it’s the simple one that everyone talks about – you’re going to book a hotel and then

right after you book, it will suggest restaurants. I think that’s overly simple, and frankly probably

not that powerful. You maybe not be in the mood – you just booked your hotel, do you really

want to book a restaurant?

As you get closer to the time of departure, we can send a pre-chirp email and say, “it’s three days

away, you’re going to Malta, you get in at 8 at night. Do you want to reserve a table because the

kids will be hungry?”

Or in the guide – we now have guides to many of our cities called Insider Guides – one of the

most popular parts is on restaurants nearby a traveler’s hotel. To be able to tell people that have

already shown that they love to do things through the Internet, “here are a bunch of restaurants

around your hotel, and here are three of them that you can book using this really cool tool.”

That kind of cross-promotion versus trying to get a cross-sell is a more powerful set of scenarios.

It’s also very complementary, because if you can find people a great place to stay, and then also

a great place to eat, that’s a very real positive in terms of the emotional experience we hope to

execute».

Priceline maintains focus on reducing friction for local experiences, no plans to become the next

Oracle (Tnooz, 2014)

Viator -> Tripadvisor in 2014 for $200M

“Key metrics

Viator is a leading seller of tours online, with 20,000 options, from walking tours to whale-

watching trips.

While it says it has 1,000 destinations across more than 160 countries, it has focused its

marketing efforts on the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia (where it was born).

The company doesn’t disclose revenue, but it does say that it receives 8 million visitors to its site

each month. It claims that its apps for Apple and Android devices have been downloaded more

than 1 million times.

The company has previously said that its search engine marketing tactics have ensured that it is

at the top of Google search results for many relevant queries — a key source of its customer

referrals.

Referrals from more than 3,000 affiliates are also important, including ones from 17 online travel

agencies, 18 hotel brands, and 33 airlines, according to a company presentation given this past

winter.

Direct marketing efforts include more than 700,000 “opt-in” subscribers to its email newsletter.

Viator has aimed to improve on-demand availability for customers, especially ones who are

already at a destination and doing searches on a tablet or smartphone. Earlier this year, it told

Tnooz that 80% of its product line is bookable within 24 hours, 90% bookable within 48 hours.

Big market

The tours and activities sector in Europe alone is 545 million customers per year, achieving gross

bookings in the region of 37 billion euro, according to a spring 2014 released study by

PhoCusWright, a market research firm.

Viator, which has more than 250 employees worldwide, has to work both to build up its supply

— by helping tour operators, many of whom are not technologically savvy, to “go digital.”

It also has to work on the “demand” side, explaining to vacationers worldwide that tours and

activities can be booked online in advance of a trip. Most travelers are accustomed to booking

these things on the fly, in person”.

TripAdvisor acquires Viator, the tours and activities agency, for $200M (Tnooz, 2014)

“Rather than try to integrate the complexity surrounding tour bookings – such as tour-specific

inputs such as passenger weight for a helicopter tour – the user will be sent off to Viator to

complete the booking.

In a chat with Tnooz, TripAdvisor’s SVP of Global Product Adam Medros

When we bought Viator, we had a similar playbook to La Fourchette. We told them to go keep

running the business, and growing it. We have a long-term track record of letting subsidiaries

thrive and grow. But we bought them because there was a great synergy between what we have

on the demand side, and the supply they bring.

Now, we’re pulling in up to three tours per page, so if you go to the Eiffel tour there will be up to

three tours that are relevant right on the page with pricing and descriptions. We think that will

increase conversion rate, and give users an idea of what’s possible. We think it’s a great balance

between commerce and content that the user will find helpful.

As far as the roadmap, personalization is most definitely on the horizon. This means that users

may see offerings tweaked according to personal histories over time, the

Right now, it’s just the three spots offered by Viator that make the most sense for that attraction.

It’s realistic to look at us building out personalization like “just for you” on hotels. If you’re

traveling with kids and we know that from research and bookings, we can tweak the tours.

Anything that maximizes conversion and user happiness in terms of that’s the right thing for me,

that’s what we’re going to offer up. It’s a big part of the road map in 2015 and what we’re going

to deliver on”.

TripAdvisor begins integrating Viator listings with tour comparisons (Tnooz, 2014)

“First of all, I started writing this article before the news about Tripadvisor’s acquisition of

Viator was made public (you can read more about what this deal means for the tours and

actvities sector in a piece by Tnooz Node, Alex Kremer).

What this means for Tripadvisor is evident – the words about Tripadvisor starting to focus on the

whole trip appeared after it acquired restaurant booking service LaFourchette.

If we look at TripAdvisor acquisitions prior to 2014, we might easily notice a focus on sites

covering the (user generated) reviews space.

But the two big acquisitions made so far in 2014 (LaFourchette for $140 million, Viator a mere

$200 million) show that this year we might see how it finally takes some serious steps in new

directions.

We now see Tripadvisor;s acquisition policy has become more aggressive, and clearly the goal is

getting beyond inspiration and planning.

Tripadvisor, obviously, is not going to forget about hotels, with the launch of the metasearch

service and more recently the mobile booking tool (some people say that it is “now eating

Booking.com’s lunch“).

But what we really see is how Tripadvisor combines acquisitions with new own projects in order

to transform user reviews site into something that might be used for an entire trip, starting with

the inspiration element and following the user journey with tools for other services a traveler

might need.

(Yes, it still has a flight search engine, too)”.

Three online travel giants and three approaches to the new travel ecosystem (Tnooz, 2014)

Additional resources:

The wait is over, tours and activities finally hits the big time (Tnooz, 2014)

One small step for TripAdvisor, one giant leap for tours and activities (Tnooz, 2014)

Appendix. Notable people behind some acquisitions.

Terrell Jones (ex-CEO at Travelocity, founding chairman at Kayak)

Robert Cole (ex-Vice president of Hotel and Car at Cendant (future Travelport))

Gregg Brockway (founder at Hotwire (sold to Expedia), founder at Tripit (sold to Concur))

Dinesh Dhamija (founder at ebookers (bought by Cendant))

Jeffrey Katz (founder at Orbitz)

Dara Khorowashi (CEO at Expedia)

Steve Kaufer (CEO at Tripadvisor)

Marco Ficcara (ex-CEO at Venere)

Rolf Schroemgens (founder and CEO at Trivago)

Barrie Seidenberg (CEO at Viator)

Darren Huston (CEO at Priceline)

Jeffery Boyd – ex-CEO at Priceline, the man behind deals with Booking.com, Agoda, Kayak etc. See:

http://skift.com/2013/11/08/7-things-pricelines-jeffery-boyd-changed-about-the-business-of-travel/