Expedia Group History: From Microsoft to Travel Platform

Rich Barton later recalled a simple frustration behind the idea that became Expedia: Microsoft’s internal travel-booking process gave employees limited direct control over the reservation systems behind their trips. In a 2025 interview, Barton remembered thinking, “I knew I could do better if I had access to the system.”

That idea grew into a consumer travel service that put more search and booking capability directly in users’ hands. The corporate story that followed was less simple: Expedia went public, moved through USA Interactive and IAC ownership, returned to the public markets through a 2005 spin-off, expanded across multiple travel businesses, and later worked to bring many of those operations onto shared technology.

By the mid-2020s, Expedia Group combined consumer travel brands with a growing B2B platform business. Reaching that structure required repeated changes in ownership, portfolio scope, leadership, and technology.

A Quick Look at the History of Expedia Group

Company History Summary

Expedia’s public travel service launched inside Microsoft in 1996. Its corporate history then moved through a 1999 predecessor IPO, USA Interactive and IAC ownership, and a 2005 spin-off that created the Delaware corporate lineage behind today’s Expedia Group.

The independent company later expanded across multiple travel businesses, spun off TripAdvisor, changed its name to Expedia Group in 2018, and moved toward shared technology, loyalty, supply, and B2B platform capabilities.

Company Snapshot

Public Travel Service Origin: October 22, 1996, when Microsoft Expedia Travel Services debuted on the web.

Founder: Rich Barton is identified in Expedia’s 2002 filing as having founded Expedia in 1994 while at Microsoft.

Public-Company Lineage: The predecessor Expedia, Inc. was incorporated in Washington in 1999. The present Delaware corporate lineage was formed in 2005 and became independent through IAC’s August 9, 2005 spin-off.

Public Listing: Nasdaq, ticker EXPE.

Core Consumer Brands: Expedia, Hotels.com, and Vrbo.

Current Leadership: Ariane Gorin has served as CEO since May 13, 2024.

Current Business Structure: Expedia Group reports B2C, B2B, and trivago segments.

2025 Scale: Expedia Group reported approximately $14.733 billion in revenue and $119.590 billion in gross bookings.

From a Microsoft Travel Project to Consumer Self-Service

Expedia’s origin sits at the intersection of consumer internet access and travel-reservation technology. Expedia’s 2002 annual filing identified Rich Barton as having founded Expedia in 1994 while at Microsoft. The public service itself came later, which is why different dates can appear in summaries of the company’s beginnings.

On October 22, 1996, Microsoft Expedia Travel Services went live on the web. The service let consumers research and book airline tickets, rental cars, and hotel rooms. Behind that experience were reservation systems that had traditionally been used heavily by travel agents.

The importance of the original model was practical: consumers could gain more direct access to travel information and booking functions instead of relying entirely on an intermediary to search the underlying systems. That customer-access idea would remain part of Expedia’s identity even as the corporate structure changed repeatedly around it.

The business soon moved beyond its position inside Microsoft. On August 23, 1999, a predecessor Expedia, Inc. was incorporated in Washington. Microsoft contributed the Expedia assets to that corporation on October 1, and the company completed an initial public offering on November 10, 1999.

The IPO created a stand-alone public-company chapter, but that period did not last long. A new ownership structure was already taking shape within a few years.

USA Interactive, IAC and the 2005 Spin-Off

USA Interactive completed its acquisition of a controlling interest in the predecessor Expedia on February 4, 2002. The transaction gave USA Interactive roughly 64.2% of Expedia’s outstanding shares and about 94.9% of the voting interest reported in the filing.

Expedia was still a separately traded public company at that point. In the next phase of the same ownership sequence, IAC/InterActiveCorp acquired the remaining Expedia shares it did not already own on August 8, 2003, and the predecessor became a wholly owned IAC subsidiary.

The ownership change placed Expedia inside a broader collection of travel businesses. IAC’s travel operations came to include Expedia, Hotels.com, Hotwire, and TripAdvisor. IAC had completed acquisitions involving Hotels.com and Hotwire in 2003 and TripAdvisor in 2004.

Leadership also changed during this period. Expedia’s 2002 filing identified Rich Barton as CEO through March 2003, with Erik Blachford succeeding him effective April 1, 2003.

The next structural shift created the legal line that leads directly to the current Expedia Group. A new Expedia, Inc. was incorporated in Delaware in April 2005 to hold IAC’s travel businesses. IAC completed the spin-off on August 9, 2005, and the new Expedia became an independent Nasdaq-listed public company under the EXPE ticker.

Dara Khosrowshahi became CEO of the newly independent Expedia at the completion of the spin-off after leading IAC Travel earlier that year.

This distinction matters when describing Expedia’s age. The travel service dates to 1996, the predecessor public corporation to 1999, and the present Delaware corporate lineage to 2005. Those dates describe different stages rather than competing versions of one founding event.

Independent Expedia and the TripAdvisor Separation

The 2005 spin-off left Expedia as an independent multi-brand travel company. Its portfolio included businesses that had been assembled under IAC, giving the newly independent company a broader base than the original Microsoft travel service.

One of the most significant later changes was a separation rather than an acquisition. Expedia completed the spin-off of TripAdvisor on December 20, 2011, making TripAdvisor a separate publicly traded company.

Company materials described TripAdvisor primarily as a travel-media and advertising business, while the remaining Expedia businesses were more focused on travel transactions. The transaction narrowed Expedia’s portfolio even as the company prepared for another period of expansion.

The TripAdvisor spin-off is also an important point of clarification for the modern company: TripAdvisor is part of Expedia’s corporate history, but it is not a current Expedia Group brand.

Building a Broader Travel Portfolio

From 2013 through 2015, Expedia widened its reach through a concentrated series of acquisitions. The transactions added metasearch, regional travel brands, additional online travel agencies, and a major alternative-accommodations business.

Expedia completed a majority investment in trivago in March 2013 after agreeing to acquire a 61.6% fully diluted stake. The transaction gave Expedia majority control without making trivago a wholly acquired business.

In November 2014, Expedia completed its acquisition of Wotif Group, strengthening its presence in Australia and New Zealand. In January 2015, it acquired the Travelocity brand and related assets from Sabre after an earlier technology arrangement under which Expedia powered Travelocity’s U.S. and Canadian websites.

Orbitz followed in September 2015. The U.S. Department of Justice had reviewed the proposed transaction for six months and announced on September 16 that it would not challenge the acquisition. The department said the evidence available to it did not support a conclusion that the deal was likely to substantially lessen competition or harm U.S. consumers.

A major change in product scope came with HomeAway. Expedia completed the acquisition in December 2015, bringing a large alternative-accommodations marketplace into the group. In later filings, Expedia described that business as moving from a listings-oriented model toward online transactions and becoming centered on the Vrbo brand.

The expansion illustrates a distinction that became more important later: adding brands and capabilities is not the same task as integrating them. By the end of the decade, Expedia was managing a broad portfolio whose technology, data, loyalty, and brand structures increasingly needed to work together.

From Expedia to Expedia Group

On March 26, 2018, Expedia, Inc. changed its legal name to Expedia Group, Inc. The legal entity remained the same. Expedia said the new name better reflected its global, multi-brand portfolio.

Leadership had also changed since the 2005 spin-off era. By 2019, Mark Okerstrom was serving as CEO.

Another ownership-related change came in July 2019 when Expedia Group acquired Liberty Expedia Holdings. The transaction simplified a significant ownership structure and left Barry Diller with substantial voting influence through Expedia’s Class B shares.

The 2026 proxy identified Diller as Expedia Group’s chairman and senior executive. It also reported that he beneficially owned all outstanding Class B shares and held approximately 32.6% of Expedia Group’s total voting power. Expedia Group remained a publicly traded company; that voting position was not the same as majority economic ownership.

The 2019 Leadership Break and the COVID-19 Shock

By 2019, Expedia Group’s management was working to bring brands and technology together through a major reorganization. In December, the board announced that CEO Mark Okerstrom and CFO Alan Pickerill would resign.

Chairman Barry Diller described the split in unusually direct terms: “Ultimately, senior management and the Board disagreed on strategy.” He also said the reorganization had produced a material loss of focus on current operations and had contributed to disappointing third-quarter results and a weak near-term outlook.

The board placed Diller and Peter Kern in day-to-day oversight roles. Before the organization could settle into that reset, the travel industry faced a much larger external shock.

COVID-19 produced a severe collapse in travel demand in 2020. Expedia reported steep booking declines, elevated cancellations and refunds, and heavy pressure on customer-service systems. Existing self-service cancellation capabilities were not sufficient for the scale and complexity of the disruption, and technology teams built additional tools to handle changes and cancellations.

The board appointed Peter Kern CEO on April 22, 2020. A day later, Expedia announced approximately $3.2 billion of new capital, including about $1.2 billion of preferred equity and roughly $2 billion of new debt. The company also continued restructuring and cost reductions that had begun before the pandemic.

The simplification effort had begun before COVID-19. The pandemic sharply increased the need to preserve liquidity, reduce costs, improve servicing tools, and continue rebuilding the operating model under extraordinary conditions.

One practical lesson from this period is that large-scale integration can create operating risk when accountability and day-to-day execution weaken. Expedia’s board explicitly linked the 2019 reorganization to a loss of operational focus, while the pandemic then tested customer service, liquidity, and technology on an extraordinary scale.

Expedia also narrowed its portfolio during this period. In November 2021, American Express Global Business Travel completed its acquisition of Egencia from Expedia Group. Expedia received a minority ownership interest in GBT and entered a long-term lodging-supply agreement.

Turning Separate Brand Systems Into a Shared Platform

Beginning in 2020, management increasingly focused on common infrastructure. Expedia Group unified product, technology, and data teams and continued migrating major consumer brands onto shared systems.

Hotels.com completed its front-end migration to Brand Expedia infrastructure in 2022. Vrbo followed in 2023. Expedia’s 2024 filing described the unified consumer front end as completed in 2023.

The company also introduced One Key in the United States in 2023 as a loyalty program spanning Expedia, Hotels.com, and Vrbo. One Key launched in the United Kingdom in 2024, although Expedia paused further international rollout that year before continuing migration and expansion work later.

The shared-platform effort did not eliminate the need for brand-level management. In 2024, Expedia introduced general managers for its core consumer brands to create clearer accountability and more distinct brand propositions while retaining common platform capabilities.

The organization was still changing. In February 2024, Expedia announced a restructuring affecting approximately 1,500 employees, or about 9% of its workforce at the time. Reuters reported the move as part of a broader organizational and technological transformation amid moderating travel growth.

Leadership changed again a few months later. Ariane Gorin, who had led Expedia for Business, became CEO on May 13, 2024, succeeding Peter Kern.

This phase underscores another distinction in Expedia’s history: portfolio growth and portfolio integration are different management problems. Acquisitions can add brands, supply, and capabilities quickly; making those businesses share technology, data, loyalty systems, and operating accountability requires a separate effort.

Expedia Group Today: Consumer Brands, B2B and trivago

By the end of 2025, Expedia Group reported three segments: B2C, B2B, and trivago. The B2C segment included the core consumer brands Expedia, Hotels.com, and Vrbo, along with other travel brands in the group. The B2B business supplied travel inventory, technology, and related capabilities to outside partners such as airlines, travel retailers, corporate travel-management companies, and financial institutions.

Expedia Group reported approximately $14.733 billion in 2025 revenue and $119.590 billion in gross bookings. At year-end 2025, it reported approximately 3.6 million lodging properties, including about 2.4 million online-bookable alternative accommodations through Vrbo and about 1.2 million hotels and other lodging properties.

The B2B business had become an increasingly important part of the group’s recent growth. In the second quarter of 2026, Expedia reported B2B gross bookings of $10.742 billion, up 21% from the prior-year period, and B2B revenue of $1.493 billion, up 23%. B2C gross bookings and revenue each grew 8% in the same quarter.

The second-quarter figures capture a recent growth pattern rather than a permanent outcome. Expedia Group’s stated strategy continues to emphasize shared travel supply, technology, data, loyalty, personalization, and AI capabilities across both consumer brands and business partners.

The modern company is therefore broader than the Expedia website that introduced many consumers to online travel booking in the 1990s. The same lineage now spans consumer brands, alternative accommodations, metasearch, and a platform business that makes Expedia’s supply and technology available outside its own retail brands.

From Booking Website to Broader Travel Platform

Expedia’s history includes several distinct corporate stages: a Microsoft travel service, a 1999 public predecessor, a period under IAC, and the 2005 spin-off that created the present corporate lineage. Later chapters added a TripAdvisor separation, acquisition-led expansion, a leadership rupture, the COVID-19 travel shock, and years of technology consolidation.

A recurring pattern is expansion in what Expedia makes available and to whom. The original service gave consumers more direct access to travel-search and booking tools. Later, acquisitions broadened the brands and categories inside the group. The current platform strategy extends supply and technology across those brands and into B2B partnerships.

As of October 2026, that transition was still underway. Expedia Group had moved far beyond its Microsoft-era travel website, while management continued to focus on making travel inventory, technology, and information available across a wider set of consumer and business relationships.

Timeline

This timeline highlights the major milestones that shaped Expedia from its Microsoft origins into the modern Expedia Group.

1994

Expedia’s 2002 filing identifies Rich Barton as having founded Expedia while at Microsoft.

October 22, 1996

Microsoft Expedia Travel Services debuts on the web with online air, car, and hotel research and booking.

1999

The predecessor Expedia, Inc. is incorporated in Washington in August. Microsoft contributes the Expedia assets in October, and the company completes its IPO on November 10.

February 4, 2002

USA Interactive completes its acquisition of a controlling interest in the predecessor Expedia.

August 8, 2003

IAC acquires the remaining Expedia shares it does not already own, making the predecessor company a wholly owned subsidiary.

2005

A new Expedia, Inc. is incorporated in Delaware in April. IAC completes the travel-business spin-off on August 9, creating the independent public company that leads to today’s Expedia Group.

December 20, 2011

Expedia completes the spin-off of TripAdvisor, which becomes a separate publicly traded company.

2013–2015

Expedia expands its portfolio through a majority investment in trivago, followed by Wotif, Travelocity, Orbitz, and HomeAway.

March 26, 2018

Expedia, Inc. changes its legal name to Expedia Group, Inc.

2019

Expedia Group acquires Liberty Expedia Holdings. In December, CEO Mark Okerstrom and CFO Alan Pickerill resign after a board-management strategy disagreement.

April 2020

Peter Kern becomes CEO. Expedia announces approximately $3.2 billion of new capital as the COVID-19 travel collapse pressures bookings, liquidity, and customer service.

November 2021

American Express Global Business Travel completes its acquisition of Egencia from Expedia Group. Expedia receives a minority interest in GBT and enters a long-term lodging-supply relationship.

2022–2023

Hotels.com and then Vrbo migrate their front ends to shared Brand Expedia infrastructure. Expedia describes the unified consumer front end as completed in 2023, and One Key launches in the United States.

2024

Expedia restructures its workforce, launches One Key in the United Kingdom, adds general managers for core consumer brands, and appoints Ariane Gorin CEO effective May 13.

2025

Expedia Group reports approximately $14.733 billion in revenue and $119.590 billion in gross bookings.

Second Quarter 2026

Expedia Group reports $33.928 billion in gross bookings. B2B gross bookings rise 21% year over year and B2B revenue rises 23%, outpacing reported B2C growth for the quarter.

FAQs

Question: When was Expedia founded?

Answer: Expedia has several important origin dates. Expedia’s 2002 filing identifies Rich Barton as having founded Expedia in 1994 while at Microsoft, while Microsoft Expedia Travel Services launched publicly on October 22, 1996.

The predecessor Expedia corporation was formed in 1999, and the present Delaware corporate lineage was formed in 2005 before IAC spun it off as an independent public company. For a simple reader-facing origin, 1996 is the clearest date for the public travel service.

Question: Is Expedia.com the same company as Expedia Group?

Answer: No. Expedia is a consumer travel brand, while Expedia Group, Inc. is the publicly traded parent company. Expedia Group’s core consumer brands include Expedia, Hotels.com, and Vrbo, and the group also operates B2B and trivago segments.

Question: Is TripAdvisor owned by Expedia?

Answer: No. TripAdvisor was once part of Expedia’s corporate history, but Expedia completed the spin-off of TripAdvisor on December 20, 2011. TripAdvisor then became a separate publicly traded company.

Question: Why is Vrbo part of Expedia Group?

Answer: Expedia acquired HomeAway in December 2015. In later years, the acquired alternative-accommodations business became centered on the Vrbo brand and moved toward an online transaction model.

Question: Who owns or controls Expedia Group?

Answer: Expedia Group is a publicly traded company. Barry Diller has substantial voting influence through Class B shares; the 2026 proxy reported that he beneficially owned all outstanding Class B shares and held approximately 32.6% of total voting power.

That voting position is not the same as owning a majority of Expedia Group’s economic equity.

Question: Who is the CEO of Expedia Group?

Answer: Ariane Gorin has served as CEO of Expedia Group since May 13, 2024. She succeeded Peter Kern after previously leading Expedia for Business.

Interviews & Firsthand Resources

Rich Barton on Empowering Consumers With Information

In this Stanford Technology Ventures Program talk, Rich Barton discusses the idea of giving consumers direct access to information and connects that philosophy to companies he helped build. It provides useful firsthand context for understanding the broader approach behind Expedia’s early consumer model.

View the resource

Rich Barton on the Problem Behind Expedia

This GeekWire interview with Rich Barton and Court Lorenzini includes Barton’s retrospective explanation of the travel-booking frustration that helped inspire Expedia. It is especially useful for the human side of the origin story and for understanding how Barton framed consumer access to information years later.