Expedia Wants To Use AI To Cut Google Out of Its Trip-Planning Business (theverge.com) 14
Travel website Expedia wants to get people to start their travel search on its site with AI instead of using an external search engine. From a report: Expedia already uses AI for some customer service features and to help property owners describe their homes and hotels. The company hopes in the future that AI will help it recommend travel destinations to customers based on previous trips and bring more direct traffic to its site. It's a long-term plan to shift the balance of power on the web -- albeit one that's still in its earliest stages for the company.
Rajesh Naidu, chief architect and head of data management at Expedia, says the goal is to get users started on their trips in one place. Expedia hopes to produce recommendations trained with its library of flight and hotel information and informed by users' travel preferences. "By being able to train large language models on our data, this rich 70 petabytes' worth of data we've gathered over the years, we can eventually recommend places to go and stay and do and continue to refine and personalize that," Naidu tells The Verge in an interview. According to Naidu, when people plan trips, they often start by going to a search engine to look for a destination. Only then do they visit services like Expedia to start booking travel and accommodation. There's nothing inherently wrong with going to Google and typing "best vacation that isn't cold and not that far from New York," but Naidu believes there's value in streamlining the travel planning process even more.
Rajesh Naidu, chief architect and head of data management at Expedia, says the goal is to get users started on their trips in one place. Expedia hopes to produce recommendations trained with its library of flight and hotel information and informed by users' travel preferences. "By being able to train large language models on our data, this rich 70 petabytes' worth of data we've gathered over the years, we can eventually recommend places to go and stay and do and continue to refine and personalize that," Naidu tells The Verge in an interview. According to Naidu, when people plan trips, they often start by going to a search engine to look for a destination. Only then do they visit services like Expedia to start booking travel and accommodation. There's nothing inherently wrong with going to Google and typing "best vacation that isn't cold and not that far from New York," but Naidu believes there's value in streamlining the travel planning process even more.
Confusion by AI? (Score:3)
An AI can also be used to confuse travelers as well.
With an AI it's even possible that the cheapest route from London to Melbourne goes via Sydney, Nova Scotia. But do you want to go that way?
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AI would be much better for examples like those given in the summary - when what you want is a condensed version of what people have been saying about some topic over the last several years.
My Strategy for Cutting Expedia Out (Score:5, Interesting)
I book everything myself.
Last year I arranged a trip using Expedia and found that using Expedia raised the cost and made everything less convenient - it had a strictly negative value.
Since I was paying for everything I had naively expected that they would provide a breakdown for what I was paying for flights, lodging and vehicle rental. Not only was none provided, just a flat single number, I could not pry any data out of them no matter how hard I tried. Then I went through a faux booking exercise myself to replicate the trip and found that I could do it much cheaper.
But that is not the kicker.
The kicker is that it turns out you can't get anything on your trip changed -- because you aren't the client, Expedia is even though they pay for nothing themselves. Make use of the airline's convenient flight change policy? Sorry. You have the ticket but you aren't the client. Extend the hotel stay by one night? Sorry, you have to rebook since you aren't the client. Change the vehicle at the rental? Sorry, you aren't the client.
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Re:My Strategy for Cutting Expedia Out (Score:5, Interesting)
I booked a trip this past summer to southeast Asia. Had what should have been a trivial experience, one of the airlines canceled a flight.
So I was instructed to get in tough with Expedia, and the only means to do so was through one of those chat bots. I'm not comfortable dealing with these chat bots for this sort of thing, and this was no different.
In my case the chat bot gave what appeared to be an honest attempt to deal with my problem, eventually conceded to connect me with a real agent, but the real agent was convinced the system (I guess the chat bot?) gave them all the information they needed. So they said I would get a notification within 72 hours of my flights re-booking, or else to get back in touch with them.
So I wait a few days, an extra day for good measure, and no notification. So I attempt to get back in touch with Expedia, and have to deal with the chat bot again. The chat bot cannot figure out what I am talking about with my last interaction, and so insists on asking me the same questions, eventually concedes and connects me with a real person, who immediately asks why I didn't come in from the context of the last interaction, then tells me that I messed up by calling back before at least 7 business days because now that they took over the ticket the timer starts over.
Long story short is the automation, AI or whatever the heck it is they are using may make things cheaper for them, but I would have happily waited on hold for 3 and a half hours and been done with it the first night. In my case, it took more than 3 weeks to have a simple re-book taken care of.
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I book everything myself.
Last year I arranged a trip using Expedia and found that using Expedia raised the cost and made everything less convenient - it had a strictly negative value.
That is exactly why they want Google out of the travel market. They're eating Expedia's lunch. Years ago, Google bought ITA Software that had a product called ITA Matrix that would do the hard work of figuring out who flies where for you, then give you a booking code you could give to an agent or direct to an airline. Google turned this into Google Flights and since then have been taking business away from Expedia and Priceline by saving the average schmuck, you and I, money on travel.
Since I was paying for everything I had naively expected that they would provide a breakdown for what I was paying for flights, lodging and vehicle rental. Not only was none provided, just a flat single number, I could not pry any data out of them no matter how hard I tried. Then I went through a faux booking exercise myself to replicate the trip and found that I could do it much cheaper.
But that is not the kicker.
The kicker is that it turns out you can't get anything on your trip changed -- because you aren't the client, Expedia is even though they pay for nothing themselves. Make use of the airline's convenient flight change policy? Sorry. You have the ticket but you aren't the client. Extend the hotel stay by one night? Sorry, you have to rebook since you aren't the client. Change the vehicle at the rental? Sorry, you aren't the client.
This is the way trave
Expedia pumps stock with AI mumbo jumbo (Score:2)
AI won't help a UI that makes it hard to use (Score:3)
On Google Travel, I can easily see a graph showing me how prices fluctuate day by day, over a one-month period. I can tweak the parameters to see how changing the length of the trip changes the price. I can exclude certain airlines. In other words, it's easy to get it to show me what I want to know.
Expedia doesn't even offer the price graph. Filtering is possible, but the interface is clunky.
How about improve the existing user experience, before making it less clear by inserting AI into the mix.
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On Google Travel, I can easily see a graph showing me how prices fluctuate day by day, over a one-month period. I can tweak the parameters to see how changing the length of the trip changes the price. I can exclude certain airlines. In other words, it's easy to get it to show me what I want to know.
Expedia doesn't even offer the price graph. Filtering is possible, but the interface is clunky.
How about improve the existing user experience, before making it less clear by inserting AI into the mix.
That's the thing though, Google doesn't sell the flights. The absolute worst thing it does is pass you direct to a pre-searched booking on the airlines website where you then deal with the airline itself (they might get a kickback for doing this).
Google has little impetus in making it hard for you to find a good price or letting you know when you're paying above the odds (or below them).
Expedia make money by reselling other people's products as the middleman, seeing as airlines are now refusing to giv
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Google makes money on referral fees when they send users to the airline web sites. They don't do this out of the goodness of their hearts.
Expedia also doesn't make a commission when they sell tickets, they charge you a service fee. So they have no financial incentive to *not* find the best deal for you.
Of course they are motivated to "stop Google." I wish them luck, and may competition make all the sites better! I just don't have a lot of confidence that they will produce something that is actually better.
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Google makes money on referral fees when they send users to the airline web sites. They don't do this out of the goodness of their hearts.
Expedia also doesn't make a commission when they sell tickets, they charge you a service fee. So they have no financial incentive to *not* find the best deal for you.
Of course they are motivated to "stop Google." I wish them luck, and may competition make all the sites better! I just don't have a lot of confidence that they will produce something that is actually better.
If you think Expedia is competition, you clearly have no idea about the travel market. Google is the disruptor here, Expedia owns half the travel market (especially in the US), Priceline owns the other half. Doesn't matter which site you go to, booking.com, hotels.com, trivago.com, all owned by those two. It is essentially a duopoly. Google Flights makes it easy to book direct, saving you money. They'll also index Expedia/Priceline sites, so it's not like Google is cutting them out of the loop. Expedia wan
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So you say I don't have any idea, but then didn't actually dispute anything substantive about what I said. The one point I was not up-to-date on was airline commissions to online travel sites, which HAD gone away, but returned in 2017.
Yes, Expedia Group and Google compete against each other. That's why Expedia wants to try to find a way to block Google.
Expedia wants... (Score:2)
I'm glad that Expedia has wants. For being a third-tier seller of a seller of a reseller of stuff, they sure want stuff. Good for them.
I want stuff too. Like no more spam. No more sites that just regurgitate stuff and pretend to be offering something. Like Expedia.
So here's a message for Expedia. I will use Google. I will not use your "AI" (no such thing). I will not book a damn thing through you. I hope to see you bankrupt and removed from the market. May you die writhing in agony.
If anything I s
Putting the Ex in Expedia (Score:3)
If we played word association, and you said "real networks, ask jeeves, and digg", I would respond "expedia"