Priceline Group Inc. (NASDAQ: PCLN) and TripAdvisor Inc. (NASDAQ: TRIP) made waves in the market on Wednesday morning on news of a new partnership. The companies announced a strategic partnership in which some of Priceline’s online travel brands will participate in TripAdvisor’s instant booking platform.
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TripAdvisor launched its instant booking platform to U.S. consumers in June 2014. It provides a seamless and efficient hotel booking experience for travelers.
Within Priceline, Booking.com will be the first brand to implement the partnership through its global network. Apart from this, Priceline.com and Agoda.com are likely to list inventory on the platform as well.
Using instant booking, travelers will be able to see Booking.com-branded hotel listings and can simply click on the “Book Now” button to book on TripAdvisor directly. TripAdvisor will then let consumers know that their hotel booking is being powered by Booking.com, and Booking.com will handle all the customer care related to the transaction.
So far, development work has already begun to support the integration of Priceline hotel properties, which are expected to be available on the instant booking platform soon.
Stephen Kaufer, president and CEO of TripAdvisor, commented on the partnership:
Having The Priceline Group join the instant booking platform is a huge win for travelers and we couldn’t be more thrilled to have them as our first strategic, global online travel agency partner. Millions of TripAdvisor users coming to the site to plan, compare prices and book their trip will be able to instantly book options from The Priceline Group’s global hotel inventory in addition to the 235,000 properties that are already instantly bookable on TripAdvisor.
Darren Huston, president and CEO of Priceline, said:
TripAdvisor has been a long-time partner of The Priceline Group and today’s announcement is part of the continued positive evolution of that relationship. Our mission is to help people experience the world, and we are constantly innovating how and where we engage with consumers to help them do this. We now believe this branded channel can help introduce more customers to our brands and the experiences we provide.
Shares of TripAdvisor were up 22% at $81.40 late Wednesday morning, with a consensus analyst price target of $84.00 and a 52-week trading range of $62.24 to $94.00.
Priceline shares were last trading down 2%, at $1,317.15 in its 52-week trading range of $990.69 to $1,395.00. The stock has a consensus price target of $1,482.83.
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