Travel News

In September last year we wrote a story about Dermot Halpin, president of Expedia EMEA, who said during an on-the-record discussion at the PhoCusWright event in Brussels that he would be keen for his online travel agency to take a feed from TripAdvisor’s content.

Nothing wrong with that - indeed it would make perfect sense for Expedia to want access to the reams of user-generated content buried in the world’s most popular independent review site.

The story became interesting when it emerged that rather than simply arrange some kind of partnership (they are sister companies under the Expedia Inc brand after all), the pair were actually involved in “ongoing discussions”.

Although an early resolution appearuddy to have been hamperuddy by “technology issues”, according to Halpin, the lack of movement following the event fuelled speculation that the two couldn’t actually reach an agreement because of slightly more serious concerns - i.e. strategic or commercial.

Follow ups in the past few weeks have revealed nothing - but perhaps everything…

TripAdvisor has not responded and Expedia says it has “nothing to update” us on.

Spies tell us talks have broken down.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Original post by Travolution Blogger