Priceline 2014 Annual Report Download - page 7

constantly innovating our websites and mobile offerings to ensure that we are meeting the needs of online consumers while aiming
to exceed their expectations.
Service Offerings
Through our OTA services, we connect consumers wishing to make travel reservations with providers of travel services around the
world. We offer consumers accommodation reservations (including hotels, bed and breakfasts, hostels, apartments, vacation rentals and other
properties) through our Booking.com, priceline.com and agoda.com brands. Our priceline.com brand also offers consumers reservations for
rental cars, airline tickets, vacation packages and cruises. We offer rental car reservations worldwide through rentalcars.com. We also allow
consumers to easily compare airline ticket, hotel reservation and rental car reservation information from hundreds of travel websites at once
through KAYAK. Through OpenTable, we offer restaurant reservation services to consumers and reservation management services to
restaurants.
Booking.com. Booking.com is the world's leading brand for booking online accommodation reservations with operations worldwide
and headquarters in the Netherlands. As of February 13, 2015 , Booking.com offered accommodation reservation services for more than
600,000
properties in over 200 countries and territories on its various websites and in 42 languages, which includes over 245,000 vacation rental
properties (updated property counts are available on the Booking.com website). Vacation rentals generally consist of, among others, properties
categorized as single-unit and multi-unit villas, apartments, "aparthotels" (which are apartments with a front desk and cleaning service) and
chalets and are generally self-catered (i.e., include a kitchen), directly bookable properties. Accommodation providers participate in
Booking.com, which operates under an agency model, by filing rates and information about the property in Booking.com's proprietary extranet.
In addition, Booking.com has begun to offer website and other marketing services to accommodation providers as part of its BookingSuite
initiative.
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• Partnering with travel service providers and restaurants. We aim to establish mutually beneficial relationships with travel
service providers and restaurants around the world. We believe that travel service providers and restaurants can benefit from
participating in our services by increasing their distribution channels, demand and inventory utilization in an efficient and cost-
effective manner. Travel service providers and restaurants benefit from our well-known brands and online marketing efforts,
expertise in offering an excellent consumer experience through our websites and mobile apps and ability to offer their inventory in
markets and to consumers that the travel service provider or restaurant may be unable or unlikely to reach. For example, an
independent hotel may not have the means or expertise to market itself to international travelers, including in other languages, to
build and operate effective desktop and mobile websites and online reservation services or to engage in sophisticated online
marketing techniques.
• Maintaining multiple, independently managed brands. We employ a strategy of operating multiple, independently managed
brands, which we believe allows us the opportunity to offer our reservation services in ways that appeal to different consumers
while maintaining an entrepreneurial, competitive spirit among our brands. We intend to invest resources to support organic growth
by all of our brands, whether through increased advertising, geographic expansion, technology innovation or increased access to
accommodations, rental cars, restaurants or other services. We also believe that by operating independently managed brands, we
encourage innovation and experimentation by our brands, which allows us to more quickly discern and adapt to changing consumer
behaviors and market dynamics. Although our brands are independently operated, we intend to continue to share best practices,
access to services and customers across our brands. We believe that by promoting our brands worldwide, sharing accommodation
reservation supply and customer flow, and applying our industry experiences in Europe and the United States to other regions, we
can further expand our reservation services globally and maintain and grow our position as a leading provider of worldwide online
travel and travel related reservation services.
• Investing in profitable and sustainable growth. Our strategy is to ensure that we offer online services that meet the needs and
expectations of both consumers and travel service providers and restaurants and that we believe are or will be likely to result in
long-term profitability and growth. We intend to accomplish this through continuous investment and innovation in growing our
businesses in new and current markets, expanding our services and ensuring that we provide an appealing, intuitive and easy-to-
use
consumer experience through our websites and mobile applications. We also may pursue strategic transactions. For example, in
2013 we entered the meta-search business when we acquired KAYAK and in 2014 we entered the online restaurant reservation
market when we acquired OpenTable. We regularly evaluate, and may pursue and consummate, other potential strategic
acquisitions, partnerships, joint ventures or investments, whether to expand our businesses into complementary areas, expand our
current businesses, acquire innovative technology or for other reasons.