Skift Take
— Pranavi Agarwal
The period after the Great Financial Crisis in 2008-2009 until 2019 was a golden decade for online travel agencies. Booking and Expedia benefitted from the shift to online bookings, a consolidation of the online distribution landscape, and share gains from hotels. They become the most powerful duopoly in online travel.
Are the heydays of Booking and Expedia over?
However, Booking and Expedia now face slower growth, stiffer competition and increased pressure on profit margins.
Booking, which was posting more than 40% growth in 2011, grew just 4% in 2019. Growth may be less than 10% in the next decade.
Why the slowdown? The tailwinds that drove market share gains are now diminishing. There’s increased competition; new entrants into the…