21 September 2010

Expedia Rating Cut on Google Fears


Today I almost feel like a regular journalist - the headline was pure Newspaper.

However the issue is that one of the leading Internet Stock Analysts Marianne Wolk at Susquehanna Financial cut her rating for Expedia on the fears of Google entering the Travel eCommerce arena. You can read about her here.

Adding the OTAs to the mix of people threatened by the Google ITA acquisition now makes clearly two. The Meta Search companies and the OTAs.

In my view - there are two more - the suppliers particularly US airlines and the GDSs who are faced with disintermediation.

As you travel around speaking to industry heads - I find this is not something that is well understood as yet but as more people think about the individual impact - no matter how Google spins it - this is a major shift in the balance of power in Travel Distribution.

In my view that represents a major threat to a large number of players. And this is now only becoming clear to them.

If you are further interested - please feel free to contact me ProfessorSabena@gmail.com - notice the irony of the use of Google's mail.

Cheers

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