Expedia is to add Ryanair flights later this month and has just announced an NDC deal with Aer Lingus, Greg Schulze, Chief Commercial Officer, Expedia Group told ITB in Berlin
While he did not expand on the Ryanair partnership, Mr Schulze talked about a culture change in Expedia that made for a more collaborative approach to the supply chain.
If you go back 10 years, Expedia group was fighting a pretty ugly public battles with hotels like Marriott and Hilton and some of the big chains. We really worked hard to to understand each other on both sides. We announced in 2019, coming out of that period, a whole new partnership and a whole new take on the partnership.
We launched what we call optimized distribution, and that was distributing wholesale rates around the world, and it was solving a problem. and it created a new business for us, and that’s been a large part of our be to be growth.”
In a wide ranging discussion at the ITB convention, he told visitors to the trade fare that searches for all inclusive are up 60pc and “everyone wants to go Koh Samui because of White Lotus.”
Mr Schulze said Expedia had originated the term “set jetting” which, he said “ is pretty clever. that that builds on the the previous trend, which is still happening, which is tour tourism, which is the music people are traveling for that as well. And it’s this these are real trends that drive real and you see airlines or what Taylor Switch concert they were adding capacity in to to ensure that they took full advantage.”
