Skift Take
Booking Holdings hasn’t offered sufficient focus to its collaborations organization in the past, ceding much ground to Expedia Group on that front. Obtaining hotel distributor Getaroom will provide potential affiliates another reason to sign up.
Dennis Schaal
In its first pandemic-era acquisition, Reservation Holdings agreed to buy hotel wholesaler Getaroom for $1.2 billion, the companies revealed Friday.
When the offer closes, Booking Holdings will fold Dallas-based Getaroom, which has more than 150 affiliate partners for its wholesale hotel company, into Reservation’s U.S.-based Priceline brand name to build the latter’s collaborations business.
The plan is to match the Priceline Partnership Network, which powers many sites such as U.S. Army Travel behind the scenes, with Getaroom to develop a brand-new Strategic Partnerships service, Booking Holdings mentioned.
The move comes as rival Expedia Group is making it a tactical necessary to reinforce its own, much bigger partnerships’ services. Expedia simply sold corporate travel brand Egencia to American Express Global Organization Travel and won a long-lasting agreement to power the travel management company’s hotel service.
Reservation stated its Getaroom acquisition, which is subject to customary regulative approvals and closing conditions, would be accretive to both taking part hotels and affiliate partners. Getaroom indications wholesale hotel handle hotels, and disperses them through its affiliate partners.
Getaroom was founded in 2009 by Bob Diener and David Litman, who satisfied in law school in the 1980s and also founded Hotel Bookings Network, later on called Hotels.com in the 1990s. They offered Hotels.com in stages to Barry Diller’s USA Networks starting in 1999, and offered a bulk stake of Getaroom to personal equity company Court Square Capital in 2018.
At the time of the sale to Court Square Capital, Getaroom did an estimated $1 billion in gross sales. Getaroom had actually been self-funded prior to the handle the personal equity company.
“As the travel industry continues to recover from the pandemic, we are continuously searching for opportunities to much better assistance both our partners and our clients. Over the years, tactical collaborations have actually played an important role in our efforts to reach more customers through new channels,” stated Brett Keller, Priceline CEO in a statement. “By integrating the innovation and proficiency of Getaroom and Priceline, we can even more improve distribution for our hotel partners and provide new and much better services for the U.S. accommodations segment.”
Getaroom started as a customer travel site and still has a traveler-facing business, however its main focus today is business-to-business collaborations.
The companies stated that Getaroom will remain headquartered in Dallas, and its CEO, Matt Davis, will take charge of Priceline’s new Strategic Partnerships business.