Expedia Media will offer oil-spill impacted Gulf states free one-day advertising placements on the homepages of Expedia.com and hotels.com, and also will donate $50,000 worth of online advertising for each of these "homepage takeover" campaigns.
The destinations marketing organizations (DMOs) representing the states of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi are eligible for the program.
The $50,000 worth of display ads will appear throughout Expedia.com.
In addition, Expedia Media, which coordinates ad campaigns for travel and nontravel advertisers, will offer tourism boards in the four states a three to one media matching program.
For every dollar the DMOs spend with Expedia Media, they will receive three dollars in marketing value from Expedia Media.
Expedia Media says the three to one match would enable DMOs to extend their marketing dollars as they try to revive tourism following the oil spill in the Gulf.
"Expedia stands behind our destination and supply partners thoughout the Gulf states," says Doug Miller, Expedia Media's global vice president. "We hope we can help minimize the economic impact of the oil spill and help Gulf state destinations overcome challenges in consumer perception that have kept travelers away even from unaffected areas."
Another Expedia Inc. unit, TripAdvisor, is offering hotels three free months of Business Listings to help them navigate the crisis. The same offer holds for vacation rental owners, who get three months worth of free Vacation Rentals listings.
Also, on the online travel agency front, Orbitz is offering refunds on hotel stays if tar balls or oil slicks cause beach closures.