Technology has come a long way in the last 20 years and Expedia has always evolved its tech platform to stay on the forefront of change. Now, travel and hospitality are at an inflection point driven by decentralised tech like Generative AI. As the Senior Vice President of Product & Technology at Expedia Group, how does Karen Bolda and her team stay on top of all these trends? And how do tech-centric providers sift through the hype without getting distracted by the ‘next big thing’ that enters the market?
“It’s really about keeping the focus on the business and on what is the outcome that that you want to achieve”, explains Bolda. “I think sometimes if you start with the opposite, with technology first, that can quickly become a distraction because you could do many, many things but what you want to do is the thing that’s going to create a great traveller experience,” Bolda adds.
In this episode of Expedia Talks, we also asked Karen Bolda about what drew her to the intersection of travel and technology, while getting her thoughts on the growing number of women in this field.
“I have seen a change and particularly I’ve seen that start with our intern program,” says Bolda. “We have 43% of women interns globally. Now that we are starting to see a lot more women entering this technology space and coming to work at Expedia, the next thing that I’m really thinking about is how do I make sure that we are retaining this talent. How are we encouraging these women? How are we supporting them? How are we elevating them to more and more leadership roles?”
With a team of 600-strong spread across the globe, Bolda maintains that Expedia’s edge in a competitive landscape is in its relationships with its partners. “That for me is really at the heart of everything that we do at Expedia – it’s about solving problems of your partners. It’s about making your partners more successful, and I think that’s really something that Expedia does well, and I think it’s something that’s important to us.
“APIs come and go, languages come and go but as you focus on that as the end outcome then whatever the technology, you are always focused on making the business successful.”
Karen also gets candid about her time growing up and the formative years that brought her to Expedia, before answering today’s most pressing question – what’s a human quality that cannot be codified?
Listen to the full episode here:
