Expedia 2014 Annual Report Download - page 9

consumers with the ability to make reservations at more than 218,000 properties in China and, through Expedia,
hotels in countries worldwide. eLong also offers air ticketing and other travel related information and services.
Travelers can access eLong travel products and services through its mobile applications and websites, including
www.elong.com and www.elong.net. During 2014, eLong continued to focus its distribution strategy on China’s
rapidly expanding mobile travel market through investments in the mobile user experience and marketing efforts
to drive transactions through that channel. eLong, Inc. is a listed company, with American Depository Shares that
trade on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol “LONG.”
trivago. trivago is our majority-owned hotel metasearch company, based in Dusseldorf, Germany, featuring
price comparison from more than 700,000 hotels on over 250 booking sites worldwide. Officially launched in
2005, trivago is one of the best known travel brands in Europe and is expanding globally with sites in 49
countries in more than 25 languages.
Venere. The Venere website, www.venere.com, lists hotel properties in hundreds of locations around the
world and provides hotel partners with geographically diverse sources of demand.
Classic Vacations. Classic Vacations offers individually tailored vacations primarily through a national
network of third-party retail travel agents. Classic delivers a full line of premium vacation packages — air,
hotels, car rentals, activities, cruises and private transportation — to create customized luxury vacations in
Hawaii, the Caribbean, Mexico, Costa Rica, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Maldives, Dubai, Seychelles
and Tahiti. Travel agents and travelers can preview our product offering through our websites,
www.classicforagents.com and www.classicvacations.com.
Expedia Local Expert. Our Expedia Local Expert network offers online and in-market concierge services,
activities, experiences, attractions and ground transportation. With access to a rich portfolio of thousands of tours
and adventures, LX can be found on 27 Expedia-branded websites, and operates more than 100 concierge and
activity desks in major resort destinations.
Expedia CruiseShipCenters. Expedia CruiseShipCenters is a leading seller of cruises and vacations. The
franchise company has 180 retail locations across North America, a team of nearly 4,000 professionally-trained
vacation consultants and a searchable online database of more than 200,000 staterooms.
Growth Strategy
Product Innovation. Each of our leading brands was a pioneer in online travel and has been responsible for
driving key innovations in the space over the past two decades. They each operate a dedicated technology team,
which drives innovations that make researching and shopping for travel increasingly easier and help customers
find and book the best possible travel options. In the past several years, we made key investments in technology,
including significant development of our technical platforms that makes it possible for us to deliver innovations
at a faster pace. For example, we launched new global platforms for Hotels.com and Brand Expedia, enabling us
to significantly increase the innovation cycle, thereby improving conversion and driving faster growth rates, for
those brands. In 2013, Expedia signed an agreement to power the technology, supply, and customer service
platforms for Travelocity-branded sites in the United States and Canada, enabling Expedia to leverage its
investments in each of these key areas. The shift of Travelocity-branded sites to the Expedia technology platform
was successfully completed over the course of 2014. In November 2014, Expedia completed the acquisition of
Wotif Group and subsequently announced plans to shift the Wotif Group sites and operations onto the Expedia
platform. In January 2015, we acquired the Travelocity brand and other associated assets from Sabre. The
strategic marketing and other related agreements previously entered into were terminated. We intend to continue
leveraging these investments when launching additional points of sale in new countries, introducing new website
features, adding supplier products and services including new business model offerings, as well as proprietary
and user-generated content for travelers. Additionally, we are finding key commercial deals and acquisitions
which enable us to leverage our existing technology and operations infrastructure to amplify our growth.
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