The Voice of Major E-Tourism Players: An Expedia Group Perspective

Abstract

This chapter outlines the approach of Expedia Group, the world’s travel platform, and the role of technology in revolutionizing travel search, discovery, and booking. It covers innovations developed by online travel agencies (OTAs) and the unique challenges and opportunities provided by the breadth and depth of the data that global OTAs leverage to power travelers’ online experiences. The focus is on accommodation, the largest revenue-generating, and most complex tourism segment. The chapter explores specific use cases where data are brought together with leading and innovative machine learning methodologies to improve traveler and supplier experiences. They include recommender systems, machine learning models that help Expedia Group manage the text and image content for over a million properties and revenue management systems for accommodation providers. The chapter concludes with a comment on the Expedia Group COVID- 19 response.