Over the last year, Google has been introducing more of its own travel businesses into search results, has been directing more traffic into its consolidated travel pages, and has been integrating more of its travel products into Google Maps.
For example, about a month ago Google introduced a stack of four vacation rental listings, including showing their nightly rates on a map, high up in search results pages above all organic results.
In other words, Expedia has to spend more with Google, and its free links in search are not as effective as they were before.
In one interesting twist, Kaufer said the company will reduce investment in its experiences and dining unit, where weve invested quite heavily in the last few years. He said the company will shift away from focusing on building supply toward leveraging the consumer demand that the business already has.
In other news, TripAdvisor stated it is now mixing in short-term rentals with hotels to better serve consumers evolving needs, and to drive conversion and improve monetization.
While some companies traditionally kept their hotels and vacation rentals in separate buckets, the trend these days is to blend them together so consumers can see all their options in one place.
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