Company Facts & History

Expedia, Inc.: A Brief History of the Online Travel Industry Pioneer

In 1996, a small division within Microsoft launched online travel booking site Expedia.com®, which gave consumers a revolutionary new way to research and book travel. Three years later, Expedia was spun out of Microsoft, becoming a publicly traded company on NASDAQ under the symbol EXPE. Meanwhile, the other brands in the current day Expedia, Inc. portfolio were independently established and began their respective courses of development.

In the first few years of the new millennium, Expedia® became - and remains - the world's leading online travel company. Following InterActiveCorp's (IAC) acquisition of a controlling interest in Expedia in 2002, Expedia grew quickly and its synergies with its parent company's other travel holdings became more and more salient as the company acquired other leading travel brands, including online travel sites Hotels.com, and Hotwire; corporate travel management company Egencia; and traveler reviews & opinions site TripAdvisor. In 2005, IAC spun out its travel businesses under the name Expedia, Inc., and since that time Expedia, Inc. has evolved into what is today the world's largest online travel company, and parent company to a global portfolio of leading consumer brands. In late 2011 Expedia, Inc. spun out TripAdvisor Media Group and retained its successful travel transaction brands.

Expedia’s corporate headquarters are located in Bellevue, Washington, with offices throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific regions.

Expedia, Inc. employs 9,480 full-time and part-time employees worldwide across its network of brands, including approximately 2,180 employees of eLong, Inc., a Chinese subsidiary. These employees make Expedia what it is today, with responsibilities ranging from customer service and website development to securing the best selection of travel options available anywhere. In fact, Expedia has over 1,000 employees based in local markets throughout the world who are solely focused on growing and managing Expedia’s valued relationships with hotel and airline partners and other travel suppliers.

Learn more about our Executive Leadership and Board of Directors

Global Presence
The brands that comprise Expedia, Inc. operate sites localized for more than 100 points of sale in more than 60 countries worldwide.

  • Expedia has local-language sites in 30 countries worldwide.
  • Hotels.com operates more than 75 local country sites, throughout North and South America, Europe, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region.
  • Egencia, the fifth largest corporate travel management company in the world, has local-language sites in 47 countries worldwide.

Financial Highlights
2011 Gross Bookings: $29.1 Billion
2011 Revenue: $3.45 Billion

See the Expedia, Inc. Investors page for more detailed financial information
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