Expedia 2006 Annual Report Download - page 10

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With Hotels.com, we differentiate our offering by positioning the brand as a hotel expert with premium
content about lodging properties.
Hotwire.com
TM
. Our discount travel website, Hotwire.com, makes available airline tickets, hotel rooms,
rental cars, cruises and vacation packages. Hotwire.com’s approach matches flexible, price-sensitive travelers
with suppliers who have excess seats, rooms and cars they wish to fill without affecting the public’s perception
of their brands. Hotwire.com travelers may enjoy significant discounts by electing to book travel services
“opaquely” or “semi-opaquely,” without knowing certain itinerary details such as brand, time of departure and
exact hotel location, while suppliers create value from excess inventory without diluting their core brand-loyal
traveler base. Hotwire.com works with many domestic and international airlines, including U.S. full-service
major network airlines, top hotels in hundreds of cities and resort destinations in the United States, Europe,
Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean and major car rental companies in the United States.
Worldwide Travel Exchange and Interactive Affiliate Network. Our private label programs make travel
products and services available to travelers through third-party company-branded websites. The products and
services made available through our websites, www.wwte.com and www.ian.com, are substantially similar to
those made available on Expedia-branded and Hotels.com-branded websites, respectively. We generally
compensate participants in the WWTE»and IAN
TM
private label programs on a revenue-share basis.
Classic Vacations». We offer individually tailored vacations that we provide primarily through a national
network of third-party retail travel agents. We deliver a full line of premium vacation packages — air, hotels,
car rentals, activities and private transportation — to create customized luxury vacations in Hawaii, the
Caribbean, Mexico, Costa Rica, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Tahiti. Travel agents and travelers can
preview our product offering through our websites, www.classicforagents.com and www.classicvacations.com.
Destination Services. Our network of travel desks located at hotels and resorts in Florida, Hawaii, and
Mexico makes available to travelers the opportunity to obtain tours, attractions, airport transfer services and
other travel-related services. Our network expanded through our acquisition of Activity World and Activity
Hut, destination service providers in Hawaii in 2004 and 2006, and our 2005 acquisition of Premier Getaways
in Florida.
Expedia»Corporate Travel. Our full-service travel management company makes travel products and
services available to corporate travelers in the United States, Canada and Europe. In 2004, we established
ECT — Europe, which includes Egencia and World Travel Management, both of which were acquired in 2004.
ECT provides, among other things, centralized booking tools for employees of our corporate travelers, support
of negotiated airfares and consolidated reporting aimed at small- and mid-sized businesses. ECT charges
corporate client companies account management fees, as well as transactional fees for making or changing
bookings. In addition, ECT provides on-site agents to some corporate clients in order to more fully support the
account.
eLong
TM
. Our majority owned online travel service company, based in Beijing, the People’s Republic of
China (“China”), specializes in travel products and services in China. eLong uses web-based distribution
technologies and a 24-hour nationwide call center to provide consumers with consolidated travel information
and the ability to access hotel reservations at discounted rates at over 3,500 hotels in major cities across
China. eLong also offers air ticketing and other travel related services, such as rental cars and vacation
packages. Travelers can access travel products and services through the websites, www.elong.com and
www.elong.net.
TripAdvisor». Our comprehensive online travel search engine and directory aggregates unbiased articles,
guidebook reviews and user opinions on cities, hotels and activities in a variety of destinations from a number
of online sources through our websites, www.tripadvisor.com and www.tripadvisor.co.uk. In addition to travel-
related information, TripAdvisor’s destination-specific search results provide links to the websites of
TripAdvisor’s travel partners (travel service providers and marketers) through which travelers can make related
travel arrangements.
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