Expedia Group

After our grand tour of the River Plate stadium, we returned to our hotel and eventually attended our meeting of Expedia group in the financial district of Buenos Aires. We were welcomed greatly by Expedia and our guide, Nicholas Grande, who is an area manager within Expedia.

Nick explains that the worlds travel platform is about bringing people together and bringing the world within reach. They attract diverse travelers through their various channels and platforms, alongside generating global demand and maximizing potential revenue.

In comparison in competition of external forces from the hotel market, like AirBnB, Nick believes that their rival is nowhere near them and are far from controlling the hotel market. If Expedia finds an opportunity, then they would be glad to work with companies in that field. Their most successful marketing technique has targeting the U.S. part of their market and have identified 10 key trends in U.S. consumers in order to cater to their needs. For example, they are likely to present adventure trips to the female demographic in their market, as adventure travel is currently trending among women. However, the most important factor for every consumer base for booking a hotel is the value for their money. The biggest challenge they face are the data giants that overshadow them, such as Google. Other problems include keeping their companies from overshadowing one another and not possessing a website about travel experiences.

During the informative meeting, Nick had us engaged with a quiz on Kahoot that had questions based on the presentations. These questions were on statistical analyses about various groups of customers, like how many customers read reviews prior to booking a hotel (83 percent).

What had my undivided attention was the data aspect of the company. As an information systems major, data science can play a big role in my career. Information needs to be streamlined and accessed more and more easily as push further into the digital age. Business intelligence influences the people on what they want in their experiences of the hotel itself (business and leisure).

That’s it for this one! Stick around for more to come!

Harrison Burke