The B2B Battleground: Expedia, Booking and Hopper Are Redefining Online Travel’s Quiet Money Machine
If online travel agencies want to go to where people are booking travel, they are going to have to make the B2B game an integral part of their businesses. Otherwise, they'll be handing those potential customers to competitors.
For decades, online travel has been about winning the consumer. Expedia and Booking.com, and more recently Hopper, have battled for market share on search engines and in app stores, all to get travelers to click and book.
But much of the action in online travel right now is happening behind the scenes. The biggest players are doubling down on business-to-business deals: They’re powering travel portals for banks, airlines, and loyalty programs, and it can be the fastest-growing part of their overall businesses.
Big shifts are under way:
Skift has learned that Booking Holdings is rolling its Booking.com, Priceline, and Agoda partnership teams into a single B2B division – a shake-up that tamps down internal competition and signals a bigger bet on the space. Hopper has pivoted so heavily toward B2B that its consumer footprint outside North America has all but disappeared. And Expedia, the long-standing leader in B2B, is expanding its technology off
skift.
