So it wasn't the Priceline Group after all -
Expedia
has announced its intention to buy vacation rental brand HomeAway for $3.9 billion.
It is the second biggest deal in travel tech in this decade, but it still a fair distance behind the $8.3 billion that
SAP paid to buy Concur
in September 2014.
The HomeAway acquisition is a combination of cash and stock, the pair announced after their respective shares finished trading today in the US.
Regulatory approval will be required ahead of the deal closing.
HomeAway
became a public company
in June 2011 and now claims to have one million listings in 170 countries worldwide.
Expedia Inc president Dara Khosrowshahi says the company has had its eyes on the $100 billion "alternative accommodations space".
The pair have had a distribution relationship for over two years
.
HomeAway CEO Brian Sharples says:
"We could not be more excited about joining the Expedia family of leading travel brands and what this move means for our very bright future.
"We're eager to benefit from Expedia's distribution, technology and expertise, which will allow us to provide an even better product and service experience for our owners, property managers and travelers.
"In this way, I believe our combination with Expedia will turbocharge our growth and industry leadership for many years to come."
The interest in the sector has increased massively in recent years as more of the traditional rental properties have moved to real-time booking and new entrants such as
Airbnb
have generally raised the profile of accommodation options outside of the hotel industry.
Many had tipped HomeAway to eventually come under the parental guidance of Expedia's arch rival, the free-spending Priceline Group.
But Priceline's
Booking.com
has been working hard over the past 18 months to build its own inventory of vacation rental listings, even to the extent of
launching its own offshoot site Villas.com in May 2013
.
The company's mantra has been how all of its inventory is bookable online, rather than the existing process for many properties of requesting availability.
Expedia has made no attempt to disguise how it will work hard and quickly to bring HomeAway's technology under the hood of its new owner.
Sharples had previously estimated it would take until the end of 2016 to achieve 100% online bookings.
Khosrowshahi says:
"With our expertise in powering global transactional platforms and our industry-leading technology capabilities, we look forward to partnering with them to accelerate their shift from a classified marketplace to an online, transactional model to create even better experiences for HomeAway's global traveler audience and the owners and managers of its 1.2 million properties around the world."