‘Expedia to become household name’

Bloomberg

Travel booking giant Expedia Inc. has websites in more than 35 languages, makes at least 40 percent of its revenue outside the US and has offices in 30 different countries. Still, that’s not global enough for new Chief Executive Officer Mark Okerstrom.
Okerstrom, who took over at the end of August when Dara Khosrowshahi left to lead Uber Technologies Inc., wants to make Expedia a household name for European and Asian travellers looking for hotels in their own regions. Historically, Expedia has gotten the bulk of its revenue from Americans using the site to book domestic and foreign travel.
“We have to do a better job being a global player—and not just global in terms of having more countries in our investor relations presentation,” Okerstrom said in an interview. “We are significantly under-indexed in every major market with the exception of the US.”
Okerstrom’s comments come as his company’s arch-rival, Priceline Group Inc., is turning up the heat for Expedia’s domestic business by spending heavily on ads for its Booking.com travel site, which already dominates Europe. Chinese travel giant Ctrip.com International Ltd. has also been asserting itself internationally, agreeing to buy Scottish flight booking site Skyscanner last year for $1.7 billion.
Okerstrom called out Europe as a key market.