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Expedia stock jumped 46% in 2015 while Priceline came off of 2016 with 13 straight quarters of beating analysts’ expectations, but not even their respective market caps of $18.9 billion and $87 billion –the latter greater than that of Marriott and Airbnb combined—can buy them immunity from the cyclical nature of the market. Mark Mahaney, managing director at RBC Capital Markets, points to the buying opportunity currently at hand. Both also dismissed the possibility of Amazon potentially stealing online travel agency market share, agreeing that Amazon’s repeated attempts in the travel space have never born fruit and scaling up comparable inventory would be a long, slow road for the online retailer. The Phocuswright white paper “Travel Metasearch –Just Google It?,” released at the conference, supports the rise of travel metasearch –43% of US travel shoppers used it in 2016, compared with 28% in 2010—as well as Google’s lead position among metasearch sites. Google has gained in flights, surpassing market leader Kayak in 2015 and it also sends traffic downstream to more airlines and hotel websites than other metasearch platforms. Read original article |
