Expedia Group hosted a major conference for its travel partners called EXPLORE 22 in the Aria Resort & Casino hotel complex in Las Vegas on Wednesday, May 4, 2022 and Thursday, May 5, 2022 — and during this conference of which approximately 3,000 people attended, Booking Holdings plastered digital advertisements throughout the city via electronic billboards at hotel and resort properties, on taxi cabs, and at the International airport which serves the greater Las Vegas metropolitan area.
Booking.com Floods Las Vegas With Advertisements During Expedia Conference
Peter Kern — who is the current chief executive officer of Expedia Group — reportedly was not pleased at what appeared to be an obvious attempt to sabotage the conference with a sea of Booking.com blue.
Booking Holdings is based in Amsterdam and includes a portfolio of such brands as:
- Booking.com
- priceline.com
- KAYAK
- agoda.com
- Rentalcars.com
- OpenTable
Expedia Group is based in Seattle and includes a portfolio of such brands as:
- Expedia.com
- Vrbo, which was previously known as HomeAway
- Hotels.com
- Hotwire.com
- Orbitz
- Travelocity
- trivago
- CarRentals.com
- CheapTickets
- traveldoo
Additionally, print advertisements were also included in newspapers and other publications.
Final Boarding Call
I attended the EXPLORE 22 partner conference by Expedia Group in Las Vegas and definitely noticed the blanketing of the city with advertising from Booking.com. In fact — in the photographs which I took at the aforementioned airport — Booking.com seemed to advertise at least at quadruple the frequency than how often Expedia.com was advertising…
…and I did not notice any advertising for Expedia.com and its brands while I was in Las Vegas except for at the airport. Perhaps the reason — in my humble opinion, anyway — is that the advertisements for Booking.com seem to be more noticeable than those of Expedia.com.
I personally do not believe that the timing of the substantial amount of advertising by Booking.com was merely coincidental or serendipitous.
All photographs ©2022 by Brian Cohen.
