Speaking at the Credit Suisse Technology Conference in Phoneix, Expedia’s CFO however said that Airbnb wouldn’t find entering the hotel booking space an easy thing because of the strong presence of Booking.com and Expedia.
Mark Okerstrom, Expedia’s CFO, said. “The industry structure is different. The business practices of the existing hoteliers are different. Connectivity is built between the OTAs already and the hotels there are established relationships and patterns of behavior and though I think that it’s certainly open for Airbnb to try to enter the hotel market. I think they are entering the market that has a couple of very large and established players who have a pretty amazing consumer value proposition and a pretty amazing supplier value proposition. And I think that like many before them have found, it’s not as easy as coming up with a website, it’s different.”
Source: Expedia serious about Airbnb entering hotel booking business
Prof. Dr. Mihir Nayak 