“When the traveller wins, we all win” forms heart of the Big Reset
WHEN your chairman opens your conference with a declaration that “we finally got it right, after 25 years”, you’d better deliver. Such was the case at EXPLORE 22, Expedia Group’s conference which kicked off in Las Vegas yesterday after a two-year hiatus.
Barry Diller: “We decided not to let a mighty tragedy go to waste.”
Chairman Barry Diller, promising a new Expedia, said something happens when your heart stops – you reassess everything. And Expedia has had two heart stops. First, on the eve of September 11 when Diller had the opportunity to take a controlling interest in Expedia from Microsoft. There was an out clause and when 911 happened, they agonised over whether “we should get out of this thing”.
“During the debate that went on for hours, someone said, ‘When there is life, there is travel.’ We bet on life, and travel returned robustly,” said Diller.
The second heart stop was the pandemic. Billions of dollars of refunds, billions of dollars of debt taken on, 25,000 workforce reduced by a third, 95 percent of business lost overnight. “What are we going to do now? ‘If there is life, there is travel’ – it wasn’t so simple this time,” he said. “We decided not to let a mighty tragedy go to waste. We would radically revolutionise the company, come out of this nightmare and reinvent all the processes we serve travellers.”
Amid the “internal sausage wrangling that went on for two years”, one key word made all the difference – from customers to travellers. Said Diller, “We had always seen them as customers but they are travellers, and we need to deal with them uniquely. What do travellers need from us?”
And that’s the genesis of the new thinking behind Expedia Group’s three-tiered strategy to redefine its place in travel. (See related article)
Peter Kern, relating his visit to Amber Fort, Jaipur, India. “When the traveller wins, we all win” – more than a bumper sticker, he says.
Taking over the baton, Peter Kern, vice chairman and CEO, spoke about how “something went wrong” in the past 25 years and how OTAs and meta-searches allowed the market to become commoditised by price. “We all let this happen, maybe made this happen. We offered the cheapest alternative to travellers even if that wasn’t what they were looking for. Most travellers are not always looking for the lowest price.”
They want “right product at a fair price, want their expectations met and maybe surprise and delight along the way. They want us to solve problems”.
The Big Reset focuses on three core themes – relentless innovation to deliver better travel outcomes, build greater traveller confidence and match the right product with the right traveller.
A great product can only go so far, he said – things will not change if the marketplaces rewards cheap, he said. So Expedia’s new Marketplace will not reward price but overall traveller satisfaction. “Suppliers will be rewarded for that, not for price.”
Finally he said it’s time to let go of the “who owns the customer” tussle. “We realise too much time and energy have been spent fighting over who owns the customer, that holds back partnerships and it’s the wrong way of thinking,” said Kern.
So Expedia is re-architecting its platform and deconstructing the blocks of online travel to enable partners to use the capabilities to supercharge their business.
“When travellers win, we all win,” he said. And in case you think this makes for a nice bumper sticker only, Kern related his experience of his recent visit to India where he went to Jaipur and toured Amber Fort. The guide was extremely anxious he had a good experience and “when I told him not to worry, he told me he hasn’t had a foreign traveller for two years. He knew if we had a good time, we would tell our friends, then he and his tour guide friends would thrive. He knew if travellers win, we all win, including the tour guide.”
Here’s how Expedia Group intends to deliver on Diller’s promise.
