Expedia Inc. has agreed to acquire the
publicly traded vacation rental service HomeAway and its brands for $3.9
Million in cash and Expedia common stock. This move could ramp up competition with
apartment sharing startup AirBnB. Expedia is the world’s largest online travel
services company by bookings.
The Austin, Texas based HomeAway
was founded back in 2005. The company raised a total of almost $505 Million in
five funding rounds before it went public in 2011. HomeAway currently features more
than a Million paid vacation rental home listings in 190 countries on its site.
The company also owns a portfolio of other rental sites, including VRBO.com and
VacationRental.com in the US as well as similar sites in Germany, UK, France,
Spain, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand.
It also operates
BedandBreakfast.com. This acquisition puts Expedia, which owns sites like
Hotels.com, Hotwire.com, Travelocity, Orbitz, and Venera in direct competition
with AirBnB. Given AirBnB rapid growth, Expedia probably looked at building its
own competing service but decided to use its war chest to acquire HomeAway. Expedia
biggest competitor, Priceline Group, doesn’t currently own a dedicated sharing
economy travel site, but it’s Booking.com brand is slowly moving into this
space.
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