Interview
BBT editor Paul Revel talks to Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi
IN HIS KEYNOTE address to open this year’s Business Travel Show, Expedia boss Dara Khosrowshahi described his vision of the future of travel. He talked of a new breed of business travellers, and a world where their behaviour and demands are driven by technology. These travellers want user-friendly “delightful” consumer- inspired solutions that work seamlessly across multiple plaforms. They’re willing to share data in exchange for benefits, and want to be part of decision-making. This all sounds great for Expedia, suppliers and travellers, but for travel buyers it may sound rather alarming. I ask Dara: what about the threat of disruption to their travel programmes? “I think if they embrace solutions that are integrative, that allow corporate customers to have access to the same kind of booking experience that they use on the consumer side,
Travel management company (TMC) Egencia was listed ninth in Buying Business Travel’s Leading 50 TMCs last year, with estimated UK sales of over £200 million. Last year BBT reported how Expedia believed up to 20 per cent of bookings on the site were for business travel – potentially US$5 billion a year of unmanaged business travel. Is Expedia competing with its own TMC? “I think, in some ways, Expedia
and Egencia do compete with each other on the edges,” says Dara. “If you look at Expedia Inc as an entity, we do have a number of brands that do compete with each other.
Hotels.com is competing with
Expedia.com, and is sometimes competing with Trivago customers. There’s always significant market of small businesses that don’t necessarily want a managed corporate solution.” He adds: “One of the real powers Egencia brings is its ability for
We’re now going away from designing the
businesses to predict the future, to designing them to respond to the future much more quickly
Dara Khosrowshahi
Dara Khosrowshahi is president and CEO of Expedia Inc, which operates more than 150 travel booking sites in over 70 countries worldwide. Its brands include Expedia,
Hotels.com, Hotwire, Egencia, Venere, Trivago and, in China, eLong. Khosrowshahi also serves as president of the Brand Expedia business, where he is responsible for the overall strategy and operations of the Expedia brand globally, with a focus on driving innovation and positioning Expedia for further international growth. He has served as a member of the
Fanatics.com board of directors since November 2013. Previously, Khosrowshahi served as CEO of
IAC Travel, a division of Interactivecorp. He was instrumental in the initial expansion of IAC’s portfolio of travel brands, which now comprise Expedia. Before joining IAC, Khosrowshahi served as
vice-president at Allen and Company. He holds a BA in engineering from Brown University.
we think that the travel buyer can win,” he says. “That’s really something we’re focused on with Egencia. If you provide that experience, the corporate traveller will be in the programme. You can have a win-win, both for the corporate traveller and for the travel manager as well.”
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REAL POWER Egencia is the travel management arm of Expedia, and benefits from the technology platforms and data capabilities of its giant parent company. Dara says this is a boon for travel managers. “Real-time global data that’s accurate – there’s a real power in that data. Power for you to be able to negotiate with global providers and get better deals for your company –and for making sure it’s a quality provider. It allows you to confer your duty of care in a much more effective way. We do think that power increasingly is a terrific asset that we’re building up for the travel manager.” The Expedia group, headquartered in Bellvue, Washington, reported nearly US$4.8 billion revenue on US$39.4 billion of bookings for 2013. Its websites, including brands such as
Hotels.com and Trivago, see more than 60 million visitors per month.
consumers to book online and save their companies lots of money. To some extent, Expedia is training consumers all around the world to book online. Then when it comes to their corporate trip, instead of really working hard to get your corporate travellers to book online, it comes easily, because that’s what they do at home anyway. They’re happy to do it, but the travel manager is happier because they’re saving a ton of money on service costs. And then the customer service agent can focus on the trip where their skills are really needed – the complex, multi-item international itineraries, where one of their clients is probably making a change. The right people are being used in the right way.”
PREDICTING THE FUTURE With technology driving the pace of progress, surely Dara is best placed to tell us what’s going to be the next big game-changer for business travel? “We’re now going away from designing the businesses to predict the future, to designing them to be incredibly agile to respond to the future much more quickly,” he says. “The sitting down, strategic
planning and thinking about where the world’s going to be in five years – that’s a fool’s errand now. In five
MARCH/APRIL 2014
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