Expedia and Hopper Continue Hotel Supply Deal After Bitter Dispute

Expedia Group is once again providing hotel inventory to Hopper after almost a year and a half Expedia abruptly ends partnership Due to expressed concerns regarding Hopper’s condition fintech offers, according to sources close to Hopper.

Expedia opened the hotel’s supply valve over the summer. These hotels powered by Expedia first appeared on Capital One Travel. Hopper’s most important distribution partner.

Expedia will also continue to provide hotel inventory to the Hopper app, sources said.

Fenced odds

According to one of the sources, the hotel inventory Expedia provides to Hopper occasionally comes with “limited” prices; This means that there are nightly rates that hotels plan to offer to closed groups or packages, rather than openly to consumers. This could be a major point of friction between Expedia and the hotel industry.

After the bitter split in 2023, the resumption of the partnership took place a few months later. Ariane Gorin becomes CEO of Expedia Group. Gorin became a champion of the company’s B2B segment, which includes thousands of partnerships like the one with Hopper, and tweaked or reversed many of his predecessor’s policies.

In July 2023, then-Expedia Group CEO Peter Kern ended the Hopper partnership with little notice. At the time, an Expedia Group spokesperson argued that Hopper’s fintech products were “exploiting consumer anxiety and confusing customers” and that Expedia wanted no part of it.

Meanwhile, there have been no major changes to Hopper’s fintech products.

Another part of the separation may have been due to Hopper, which has at times caused Expedia to drop hotel prices.

Hopper Layoffs

Renewed Expedia-Hopper partnership, Layoffs and restructuring Which Hopper accomplished just over two weeks ago.

Hopper laid off 60 to 65 employees, about 10% of its workforce, according to three sources. The area most affected by the layoffs, which included about 20 employees, came from the team trying to establish direct relationships between Hopper and the hotels.

These direct relationships become extremely important when Expedia ceases providing Expedia’s global hotel supply to Hopper in 2023. With the resumption of partnership, there was less need for employees working directly to establish hotel relationships.

New Focus

With the restructuring, Hopper began focusing only on the major markets with the biggest financial upside, according to one source.

Hopper has made several layoffs in the last few years under co-founder and CEO Fred Lalonde. In October 2023, Hopper undertook another rebuild and laid off 30% of its staff.

Hopper said the restructuring is designed to allow the company to focus more on growing its B2B business and generating profits. Meanwhile, Hopper has taken a backseat to its consumer B2B distribution business, according to a source who said it derives the vast majority of its revenue from such partnerships.

Expedia has no comment for this story. Hopper and Capital One did not respond to requests for comment.