Rumor: Travel site Expedia may go private

January 9, 2009 | Eric Eldon | Comments |

Expedia, a publicly traded travel planning site, may be going private, we’re hearing from within the financial bowels of New York. This is just a rumor but we’re publishing it anyway because the move could make sense, and our readers deserve to know the idea is out there.

Expedia’s site is from another era, by which I mean the 90s. It’s boring and it hasn’t changed much in recent years. A range of smaller travel sites have sprung up, meanwhile, that offer sophisticated new features for helping people save money on travel. Farecast, for example, predicts future airline ticket prices for trips you’re interested in making (and Microsoft bought it for $115 million). Expedia has also seen its share price plummet over the last year, presumably because people have less money to spend on traveling. Given the ongoing recession, it’s hard to see when travel spending is going to go back up.

What’s more, Dara Khosrowshahi, the longtime chief executive of the company, is a known deal-maker. It would be well within his nature to make a move like this.

By going private, Expedia would be freed from trying to meet investors’ quarterly revenue expectations. It could then focus on revamping its product to compete with the new competition. Then, when the market improves, it could go public again.

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About the Author, Eric Eldon

Eric currently covers digital media technology and business news, especially what's happening on social networks and their platforms. He also writes and edits stories about venture capital, and lots of other stuff, too. He started at VentureBeat in the spring of 2007, half a year or so after Matt Marshall left his reporting job at the San Jose Mercury News to found the site. Eric previously cofounded a startup called Writewith, that was building editorial software for newspapers and other groups of writers. The startup didn't work out, but he learned a lot.

  • Cali
    Except, the financial markets usually penalizes companies that decide to go private and then go public again.
  • bob
    Too bad I love Expedia the way it is
  • Expedia have been scamming travelers (source: http://www.expedianews.com). They will sooner or later dissapear
  • Ex-Expedian
    In order for Expedia to revamp their site, they will need to re-attract the talented developers who have left in droves since 2005. Being a public company is NOT why it hasn't changed much since 2004.
  • Aryz
    I think Expedia should become private in order also to rethink their system and push on with improvements that they would want to personally do with the travel company.