Expedia
 | This article needs to be updated. (January 2010) |
 |
| Expedia logo | |
| Type of business | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
Type of site | booking service |
| Headquarters | Santa Monica, California, USA |
| Owner | Expedia, Inc. |
| Created by | Rich Barton and Lloyd Frink |
| URL | expedia.com |
| Commercial | Yes |
| Registration | Yes |
Expedia is an Internet-based travel website not unlike Cheap Tickets Canada or Orbitz and a part of the Expedia, Inc. based in the US with localized sites for 20 countries (Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, UK, US). It books airline tickets, hotel reservations, car rentals, cruises, vacation packages and various attractions and services via the World Wide Web and telephone travel agents. The site uses multiple global distribution systems like Amadeus or the Sabre reservation systems for flights and for hotels, Worldspan and Pegasystems, along with its own hotel reservation system for contracted, bulk-rate reservations. This last is shared with other Expedia, Inc. sites.[2]
In December 2010, AMR, parent of American Airlines and American Eagle Airlines, removed its listings from Expedia's site. The decision resulted from a dispute over the degree of access to the site's customers. [3] AMR reversed its decision in April 2011, allowing tickets to once again be sold through the aggregate site.
Expedia was started by Microsoft, which they then spun off as a multi-billion dollar company because it was "no longer about software intensive technology" and they were "concerned that they would not do their best at this."[4]
References
- ^ "alexa statistics". Alexa Internet, Inc. Retrieved 21 May 2011.
- ^ Expedia GDS hotel description
- ^ http://articles.cnn.com/2011-01-02/travel/american.expedia_1_expedia-travel-agents-american-airlines?_s=PM:TRAVEL
- ^ Bill Gates on the CNBC TV Show The Big Idea