Expedia Group’s Ariane Gorin opens up about first year as CEO

Ariane Gorin, CEO of Expedia Group, has just completed one year leading the online travel giant.

During that time, Expedia Group has hired a several new executives—most recently bringing back former CFO Eric Hart earlier this week—and released a number of technology updates with a focus in artificial intelligence (AI) innovation. Now, on the heels of earnings results that highlighted a softening of inbound travel to the United States and travel within the U.S., Gorin and Expedia Group—like the rest of the industry—face a shifting economy and disruption to distribution fueled by AI.

In an interview with PhocusWire conducted last week at Expedia's Explore event at its Seattle headquarters, Gorin opened up about her time as CEO so far, her thoughts on the current economic environment and more.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and brevity.

How have your expectations around the CEO role shifted after a year in the position? How are your priorities changing going into year two?

When I took on the role … my priorities were making sure that … we were … creating a lot of traveler value, investing in the areas where we could grow and making sure that every dollar counted and, of course, engaging our team, empowering our team and the like. Those priorities continue to be the same.

We've brought some new people onto the leadership team … I spent time last year doing recruitment and making sure we were bringing in the right people.

As I look forward, it continues to be about how we accelerate the growth of the B2B and advertising businesses that are very fast growing, how we continue to really inject differentiation and clear value propositions into our three biggest brands [and how we] continue the momentum on brand Expedia and really continue to bring Hotels.com and Vrbo back to growth mode.

You said last year that you were prioritizing being the best at the basics. How do you feel about how that's going?

I always say, “keep it simple.” Be the best at the basics, or be brilliant at the basics. And I think that's true for any company out there.

They always say …  “You can have strategy,” but often it's a lot about the execution—and especially in an e-commerce company that has a lot of complexity—[it's about] just making sure the team is on the basics.

We've made really good progress … and there's always more that can be done.

The beauty is, you can constantly improve through execution at the same time that you make some big strategic bets that also move the company forward.

To circle back to the first question, has your view of what this role would entail changed at all in the last year?

I don't know that anybody really knows what to expect when they take a big CEO job, especially for the first time. But I think what's become clearer to me is that when you're a CEO, you really have to be thoughtful about where you are spending your time.

Are you doing the things that only you can do, around setting the strategy, around the culture, making sure that you have the right top team? Those were things that I expected but that stay front of mind.

How concerned are you about the current environment—economically and politically—and what that's going to mean for the future of travel, especially given inbound travel has already taken a hit, and the U.S. is forecast to lose $12.5 billion on international visitor spend, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council?

If there's one thing the pandemic taught us, it's that people want to travel, and they will find ways to travel. So, it's true that in the first quarter, and if you look at the data today, you see that consumer confidence in the U.S. has been declining, and international visits into the U.S. have been declining.

That being said, people still want to travel. They may change the destination they go to. They may change when they're booking, their booking window or their length of stay, but we're focused on the things that are in our control, making sure that we have a complete shop, that we've got great offers and promotions for our travelers.

You've said two-thirds of Expedia's B2C business comes from a U.S. point of sale. Do you expect to see that skew more international? 

During the years after the pandemic, as we were going through a lot of our replatforming, we focused more of our efforts on the consumer side in the U.S. and in North America. At the beginning of last calendar year, we started leaning in much more to international.

There are a number of countries where Expedia and Hotels.com have great brand awareness, [where] we have great supply, and as we start leaning back into marketing, we're seeing good growth there. So, it's not as big a part of our business [as] I would like it to be right now relative to the consumer business, but we're really confident that we have a good formula for growing in specific countries where we're relevant.

What was the biggest challenge you faced during your first year as CEO?

I think for any CEO, the challenge is ... making sure you're planning for the long term and thinking really strategically, while making sure that you have the team in place to execute for the today—and [striking] that balance between short-term and long-term.

With a topic like AI, where things are moving so quickly, it's thinking about where you are going to place your bets. When something is early on, you need to have irons in the fire in a lot of different places, figuring out where there is a one-way door versus a two-way door, but I also think that's been the fun of it.

How do you expect the industry to change with the advent of agentic AI?

Anyone who's giving predictions … there's going to be a low level of fidelity probably in what happens. Do I think that people will have personalized travel agents? Probably … I don't necessarily believe that it's going to go all the way to the booking.

To me, travel is all about creating memories. It's about living life to the fullest. It's about discovering new things, expanding our minds. I truly believe travel is a force for good in the world.

Ariane Gorin, Expedia Group

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I believe if that happens, Expedia is very well positioned to be that AI agent because we've got so much rich first-party data … we'll be able to personalize it ... From there, will people then actually want to be able to use the agent to do all of their booking for them? We'll see.

We will be guided by [our travelers] in the things that we develop.

It sounds like the connected trip is becoming more and more of a priority. Where do you think Expedia is on that journey?

I would argue Expedia was born [to offer] the connected trip. Expedia was born with packages and bundle and save. 

We talk about it as a multi-item trip, and we will just keep on getting better at that. I do think that over time with machine learning and AI, those will be accelerators.

What does the future of Expedia Group look like to you? Do you see the company expanding?

Expedia was born over two decades ago. We were the innovator in travel and bringing travel online.

When I think about where we're going as a company, we will continue to be a global travel marketplace with a balance between these beautiful, big, beloved consumer brands like Expedia, Hotels.com and Vrbo [and] a fast growing B2B business that together bring demand to the whole travel ecosystem [and] bring value to the advertisers. All of that is a massive flywheel to develop great experiences for travelers.

We have a history of bringing on new supply, new hotels, new vacation rentals, new airlines and the like, of creating new products, of bundles and then on top of that, being more personalized, innovating with AI. We will continue to be this travel and technology company that's serving travelers to help them make memories.

Now that you're living in the U.S., what do you miss most about Europe?

I'm a big walker. I love to walk around cities. I lived for 23 years in Paris and London, and they were very walkable cities. I'm still discovering the places to walk around in Seattle.

What's your favorite travel memory of all time?

A safari in Tanzania the summer of 2016 … When you go on safari, you feel like you're on the same earth, just 2 million years earlier. At the time, one of my family members had become ill, and we'd just gotten her a good doctor; we'd gotten her into the right treatment. Immediately after that, I went on safari. It was this two-week complete disconnection, and it was magical.

What does that tell you about what travel can do for people?

To me, travel is all about creating memories. It's about living life to the fullest. It's about discovering new things, expanding our minds. I truly believe travel is a force for good in the world.