Expedia released its fourth-quarter earnings report today and said gross bookings jumped 40%, compared to a year earlier -- 28 percentage points of which was from its acquisitions of Orbitz, Travelocity, and Wotif.
For full-year 2015, gross bookings growth was 24% higher than 2014's performance.
The company said its organic growth, not counting acquisitions, remained on trend with past performance. It now offers 269,000 hotels across its brands.
Inbound travel into the US has slumped a bit because of international economic and political uncertainty and a strong dollar. But Expedia's results did not show an outsize hit relative to the year prior.
Among its portfolio of brands, metasearch platform Trivago's performance stood out.
In 2015, Trivago expanded its standalone revenue by 32%, year-over-year. The brand's global marketing spread appeared to have traction. Markets outside of Trivago’s 16 most mature European markets (which generated about Euro 250 million last year) accounted for 48% of total revenue in 2015. Overhead costs have been running at about 10% of revenue.
In Europe, Trivago also continues to trial its own version of the direct, instant booking service that TripAdvisor has championed to much fanfare. It says it has on-boarded about 15,000 independent hoteliers in Europe.
Khosrowshahi said on a conference call today with investors that almost all of Orbitz's systems have been migrated onto Expedia's tech stack, with a plan to move all Orbitz for Business customers onto its Egencia tech stack by the end of year.
With the HomeAway deal only closed in December, there was little to report on that brand today. But Khosrowshahi noted on the call that by adding HomeAway to the portfolio, Expedia is taking on an strong competitor in Airbnb.
The company said its advertising agency division, Expedia Media Solutions, saw a significant boost in the fourth quarter, but numbers weren't broken out.
During 2015, Expedia's shares soared 45% in value during its year of $6 billion worth of acquisitions and investments.
But much of those acquisitions added inventory and customers in North America, halting CEO Dara Khosrowshahi's stated goal of making Expedia Inc's portfolio more global. There was a percentage point drop in its international gross bookings mix.
It seems logical than any future investments or acquisitions might aim to increase the corporation's international exposure. Expedia Inc is the largest online travel company in the US, followed by Priceline Group -- though the latter is significantly stronger internationally.
Earlier: How Expedia adopted a media mindset for ad sales