History of 3 Online Travel Websites

Expedia, Inc. is an internet-based e-commerce site that is an online travel agency.  The Expedia e-business was founded as a division of Microsoft in 1996.  By 1999, the organization was spun out of the Microsoft umbrella until 2001 when USA networks purchased the organization.  USA Networks now called InterActive Corp then created a new group of travel businesses under the Expedia name in August 2005 that includes Expedia, Expedia Corporate Travel, Trip Advisor, Classic Vacations, eLong, Hotels.com, and Hotwire.com (www.expedia.com). The company is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington.  The purpose of InterActive Corporations travel business is that all of the e-business sites it owns and operates, these entities book airline tickets, hotel reservations, car rentals, cruises, vacation packages, and various attractions and services over the internet and telephone travel agents.  The company now serves customers in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and Australia  (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=EXPE).

Travelocity was created in 1996 as a subsidiary of Sabre Holdings.  A Sabre Information Technology executive named Terrell B. Jones realized that an organization could make more money if a company could cut out many “middle-men” in the supply chain and Travelocity was built (www.wikipedia.org). The Travelocity e-commerce website was the first in its class that allowed consumers not access fare and schedule information, but also reserve, book, and purchase tickets without an intermediary such as a travel agent.  In addition to airfares, the site also permits consumers to book hotel rooms, rental cars, cruises, and packaged vacations.  Although Travelocity was the first e-business site of its kind, the company has made several acquisitions and changes to keep it competitive with the likes of Expedia and Orbitz (www.travelocity.com).

Orbitz, Inc. is another major competitor in the online travel market.  The company was formed by several major airlines in 1999, as a response to the competition from several other major discount e-commerce websites.  Because of the airlines investment within the organization, there were anti-trust concerns from the government because several of these airlines controlled 80% of the U.S. travel market were collaborating to form Orbitz.  In 2001 the Department of Transportation gave the go ahead for the organization to start doing business.  In August 2003, Orbitz filed for an Initial Public Offering.  On December 18, 2003 the company went public (www.wikipedia.org).

In September 2004, Orbitz was acquired by Cendent Corporation. It is now a wholly-own subsidiary of the Cendant Corporation.  It offers similar services as Expedia and Travelocity with mixed results. (www.orbitz.com)

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