"We could not be more excited about joining the Expedia family of leading travel brands and what this move means for our very bright future. Published on Thursday, November 5, 2015 Expedia to buy HomeAway. BELLEVUE, Wash., Dec. 15, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Expedia, Inc. (NASDAQ: EXPE) announced today it has completed its acquisition of HomeAway, Inc., including all of its brands. Expedia has made no attempt to disguise how it will work hard and quickly to bring HomeAway's technology under the hood of its new owner. The deal is expected to close in Q1 2016. You know what I think about it? First it was Travelocity, then Orbitz. So it wasn't the Priceline Group after all - Expedia has announced its intention to buy vacation rental brand HomeAway for $3.9 billion. Subscribers are upset because they are paying fees whether their property rents or not and the site is featuring properties that only pay commissions. In addition, property owners have between 24 and 48 hours to reject any reservation, so the commission model carries no risk. Buying HomeAway allows Expedia more control over the market for apartments and vacation homes. Airbnb doesn't have a mixed platform, so all the properties it features on its site only pay commissions. Expedia on Wednesday said it would buy HomeAway, an Austin, Texas-based provider of alternative vacation rentals, for $3.9 billion in cash and stock. Expedia has agreed to acquire vacation-rental giant HomeAway for $3.9 billion in cash and stock. Hotel commissions are between 15% and 18%, while pay-per-booking commissions are between 5% and 6%. All Rights Reserved. So it wasn't the Priceline Group after all - Expedia has announced its intention to buy vacation rental brand HomeAway for $3.9 billion. Late Wednesday, hotel and travel site Expedia (EXPE) - Get Report announced that it had reached an agreement to buy "alternative accommodation" site HomeAway (AWAY) for $3.9 billion. "We're eager to benefit from Expedia's distribution, technology and expertise, which will allow us to provide an even better product and service experience for our owners, property managers and travelers. Online travel booking company Expedia has agreed to buy vacation-rental firm HomeAway for $3.9 billion, but investors think Priceline might counter. The total price tag works out to $3.9 billion. Expedia Inc. EXPE recently completed the acquisition of vacation rental site, HomeAway Inc. Expedia, which has owned Hotels.com … Expedia HomeAway merger. Expedia's plan to buy 'alternative accommodation' Web site HomeAway fills a hole in its strategy, but it does so even as both companies are losing ground to disruptive startup Airbnb. The interest in the sector has increased massively in recent years as more of the traditional rental properties have moved to real-time booking and new entrants such as Airbnb have generally raised the profile of accommodation options outside of the hotel industry. At the time of publication, Laudani had no positions in the stocks mentioned. "We are thrilled to enter the fast-growing, ~$100 billion alternative accommodations space with HomeAway® on our side," said Dara Khosrowshahi, Chief Executive Officer, Expedia, Inc. Hotel bookings have a much higher commission rate. Expedia said it offered $10.15 in cash and 0.2065 per share of its own stock for each share of HomeAway it acquires. Rather, HomeAway and its ilk are online travel agencies (OTAs) that happen to focus on a specific area: vacation and short-term rentals. Expedia buys HomeAway for $3.9B because Airbnb Travel booking site Expedia has agreed to buy publicly traded vacation rental company HomeAway for $3.9 billion, the companies announced today. Reimagining travel payments for stronger 2021 recovery, Projecting travel trends for a COVID-19 Christmas, The evolving traveler journey: 3 trends hoteliers must address today, Revenue managers who play a pivotal role in demand generation will transform their careers, Trust, confidence and responsiveness - a checklist for travel brands. ), I see significant risk. Expedia’s purchase of HomeAway, part of a larger acquisition spree, is meant give the company a foothold in this market. Owners could pay additional fees to feature their property on the site. VIDEO: Travel marketing experts on pandemic behavioral shifts and opportunities, European Commission sets mobility strategy, aims for 90% emissions cut, VIDEO: OYO on doubling down on what works during a pandemic, Accor taps a trends, launches short-term vacation rental booking platform, LIVE BLOG: Coronavirus and the travel industry - impact and recovery, Airbnb rings the bell to herald its arrival on public markets, Autonomous vehicles and natural language processing on travel's 2021 watchlist, Google launches hub to aid destinations, hotels and partners in recovery, WEBINAR ALERT! SAN FRANCISCO - Expedia is deepening its travel-company bench with a $3.9 billion purchase of vacation rental site HomeAway. Expedia's listings are mostly hotels, and the deal should help it compete with vacation-based websites like Priceline (PCLN) and TripAdvisor (TRIP) - Get Report . I think it’s total B.S., and in my not so humble opinion it represents further owner-unfriendly consolidation of the vacation rental industry as we know it. HomeAway and Expedia came together to create a bigger, better platform solution for both vacationers and those that own and manage these vacation properties. Expedia agreed to pay $10.15 in cash plus 0.2065 shares for each HomeAway share. Expedia Group acquired HomeAway on December 15, 2015. While the companies are trying to figure out how to monetize their platform, Airbnb will continue to plug away without any distractions, and Expedia's margins may come under pressure during the transition. Bringing HomeAway into the Expedia, Inc. family and adding its leading brands to our portfolio of the most trusted brands in travel is a logical next … Travel site Expedia is buying vacation rental site HomeAway for $3.9 billion, the companies said Wednesday. Now, throw Expedia into the mix. In July 2015, Expedia and Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com participated in an investment of $11M in Wingz. Expedia has been keeping an eye on the alternative accommodation market for the past few years. Expedia is one of the biggest travel providers in the world and, with the acquisition of HomeAway, they are on track to becoming one of the strongest vacation forces. The companies believe the transaction will close—after regulatory approvals—in the first quarter of 2016. InPhocus, episode 30 - Who'd be a business travel startup in a pandemic? Sharples had previously estimated it would take until the end of 2016 to achieve 100% online bookings. So Expedia just shelled out $3.9 billion to acquire VRBO / HomeAway. While Wall Street will love this deal (what deal doesn't the Street love? The company's mantra has been how all of its inventory is bookable online, rather than the existing process for many properties of requesting availability. In March 2017, Chelsea Clinton was named to the board of Expedia. It continued to pack new strategic assets into its suitcase, buying familiar names Travelocity, HomeAway, and … Many had tipped HomeAway to eventually come under the parental guidance of Expedia's arch rival, the free-spending Priceline Group. Expedia Group Inc.’s 2015 purchase of HomeAway, meant to help it compete with online home-rental upstart Airbnb Inc., is finally starting to pay off. But TripAdvisor and Trivago were hardly Expedia's only revenue-producing units. Expedia will pay $10.15/share in cash and issue 0.2065 shares for each HomeAway share. Expedia paid $3.9 billion for HomeAway and its portfolio of travel brands in 2015. HomeAway became a public company in June 2011 and now claims to have one million listings in 170 countries worldwide. HomeAway started out as a subscription site. Expedia Inc president Dara Khosrowshahi says the company has had its eyes on the $100 billion "alternative accommodations space". This commission-based model proved very popular with property owners. Expedia turned HomeAway’s listing sites into eCommerce platforms and fundamentally changed the way vacation rental managers and homeowners conduct business. Instead of paying a subscription fee, property owners could list their rental for free and only pay a fee if the place rented. List your property for free and, if it rents, you can decide if you want to take the money. After years of speculation about whether it would be Expedia, TripAdvisor, the Priceline Group, or Google to purchase HomeAway, Expedia Inc. agreed to acquire the vacation rental giant for $3.9 billion in cash and stock. HomeAway and Expedia have been working together to battle Airbnb, which continues to take market share, since its business model is more attractive to property owners and there is no conflict between subscription users and commission users. But this doesn't solve HomeAway's largest problem, which is its mixed listing environment. Expedia has been listing HomeAway's vacation rentals and second-home listings next to its hotel listings. Expedia's management believes that it can drive more revenue by putting HomeAway's listings on its own hotel and travel platform. While this is an attempt to fill a hole in Expedia's strategy, this is a risky deal since both companies are losing market share to disruptive startup Airbnb. ", "With our expertise in powering global transactional platforms and our industry-leading technology capabilities, we look forward to partnering with them to accelerate their shift from a classified marketplace to an online, transactional model to create even better experiences for HomeAway's global traveler audience and the owners and managers of its 1.2 million properties around the world. “We have long had our eyes on the fast growing $100 billion alternative accommodations space and have been building on our partnership with HomeAway, a global leader in vacation rentals, for two years,” Dara Khosrowshahi, Expedia CEO, said … Now, Bellevue-based Expedia is buying the vacation-rental company HomeAway. Late Wednesday, hotel and travel site Expedia (EXPE) - Get Report announced that it had reached an agreement to buy "alternative accommodation" site HomeAway (AWAY) for $3.9 billion… Expedia also plans to start incorporating HomeAway listings on … It will pay $38.31 per share, a 20 percent premium on HomeAway’s closing price Wednesday. The company has been building a relationship with HomeAway for the last two years. Expedia is set to buy HomeAway, a competitor to Airbnb, for $3.9 billion following a two-year partnership. When the company reported its third-quarter results in late July, HomeAdvisor had more than 300,000 commission only listings. Expedia is in expansion mode.Last month, the vacation-planning giant announced it would acquire HomeAway, the Airbnb competitor that lets users search for and book vacation rental properties around the world.Also under the HomeAway umbrella are VRBO (vacation rentals by owner), VacationRentals.com, Australian vacation rental site Stayz and others. Bookings flooded in and property owners made a lot of money. HomeAway has been struggling to make its pay-per-booking model work. Property managers and owners paid a fixed monthly subscription to list their rentals. HomeAway Inc. says it has more than 1 million paid listings of vacation rental homes in 190 countries. Expedia purchased HomeAway in 2015. The deal was its first major move in the alternative accommodations space, as well as the beginning of a … Expedia said it had agreed to acquire HomeAway, adding vacation rentals to its wide swath of online travel booking options. Expedia to buy HomeAway for $3.9 billion in cash, stock Expedia just finalized its acquisition of HomeAway, meaning the online travel giant is now officially going head-to-head with Airbnb. Expedia is to purchase holiday rental firm HomeAway for $3.9 billion. Expedia (NASDAQ:EXPE) is buying leading vacation rental marketplace HomeAway (NASDAQ:AWAY) for $3.9B in cash and stock, or $38.31/share based on Expedia’s Tuesday close. HomeAway, based in Texas, includes HomeAway… ", Expedia acquires HomeAway for $3.9 billion, Copyright © 2020 by Northstar Travel Media LLC. HomeAway won't be integrated into Expedia and will be allowed to run independently. 116 West 32nd Street, New York, NY 10001 U.S. | Telephone: +1 860 350-4084, Sounding Off - PhocusWire's weekly editorial, The pair have had a distribution relationship for over two years, launching its own offshoot site Villas.com in May 2013, VIDEO: Despegar's CEO on the value of operating like a startup. 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