Expedia Warns of Lower Hotwire Profit

Online-travel agency Expedia beta on earnings but warned of a lower full-year profit from its discount travel website Hotwire due to higher car-rental rates and increased competition.

The online travel agency's shares dropped more than 7 percent after initially popping more than 4 percent.

 Expedia reduced its forecast for growth in organic earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) by $20 million-$30 million, citing weakness at Hotwire.

The company, however, reaffirmed its overall 2013 forecast for adjusted Ebitda of growth in the low double digits due to strong performance at trivago — a German travel site in which it acquired a majority stake earlier this year.

Expedia said troubles at Hotwire began with superstorm Sandy in October.

The recent consolidation in the car-rental industry made matters worse as it drove up rental rates, discouraging its price-sensitive customers, Expedia said on the call.

Hertz Global Holdings Inc bought smaller rival Dollar Thrifty last year for $2.6 billion, leaving just three players to control about 95 percent of the U.S. car-rental market.

"There certainly was incremental weakness in the first quarter (at Hotwire)," Chief Financial Officer Mark Okerstrom said on the call.

"With respect to the full year impact, we are basically forecasting that we do not see any material change from what we have seen to date. We have no reason to believe that things will get better."

He said Hotwire was also hurt by heavy advertising by its competitor. Expedia's rivals include Priceline.com and Orbitz Worldwide.

Expedia's adjusted net income fell to $35.3 million, or 25 cents per share, in the quarter ended March 31 from $36.9 million, or 26 cents per share, a year earlier.

Revenue jumped 24 percent to $1.01 billion.

Analysts on average had expected earnings of 23 cents per share on revenue of $967.7 million, according to Thomson Reuters.

The profit beat was due to strong growth in hotel bookings. Gross bookings increased 16 percent. Bookings for hotel rooms rose 28 percent, while those for air tickets increased 9 percent.

Expedia stock, which has more than doubled since the beginning of 2012, fell 5 percent to $61.77 in after-hours trading. The shares closed at $64.97 on the Nasdaq on Thursday.

Source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100674172

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Delta Ray is experienced web scraping consultant and writes articles on Hotels Data Scraping, Hotel pronto, Expedia, Tripadvisor Data Scraping, Amazon Product Scraping, Linkedin Email Scraping, Screen Scraping Services, Yelp Review Scraping and yellowpages data scraping etc.

Expedia reports Q1 loss

Expedia Inc.'s first-quarter loss widened from a year earlier on legal reserves related to a recent ruling on back taxes in Hawaii as well as its recent buyout of metasearch company Trivago.

Shares of Expedia were down about 8% Friday morning despite revenue rising 24% on a jump in hotel bookings.

Expedia said it took a $104.2 million loss, compared with a $3.3 million loss a year earlier.

The company set aside about $60 million after a Hawaii judge ruled earlier this year that OTAs owe the state $150 million in unpaid excise taxes.

Expedia had about $57 million in expenses stemming from its first-quarter acquisition of a 62% stake in Trivago. Expedia paid $564 million in cash and about $65 million in Expedia stock for the company.

Expedia’s revenue increased 24% to $1.01 billion as gross bookings advanced 16% from a year earlier to $9.8 billion, primarily on overseas growth. Hotel room night bookings jumped 28%.

Source: http://www.travelweekly.com/Travel-News/Online-Travel/Expedia-reports-Q1-loss/

Note:

Delta Ray is experienced web scraping consultant and writes articles on Hotels Data Scraping, Hotel pronto, Expedia, Tripadvisor Data Scraping, Amazon Product Scraping, Linkedin Email Scraping, Screen Scraping Services, Yelp Review Scraping and yellowpages data scraping etc.

Know What the Truth Behind Data Mining Outsourcing Service

We came to that, what we call the information age where industries are like useful data needed for decision-making, the creation of products - among other essential uses for business. Information mining and converting them to useful information is a part of this trend that allows companies to reach their optimum potential. However, many companies that do not meet even one deal with data mining question because they are simply overwhelmed with other important tasks. This is where data mining outsourcing comes in.

There have been many definitions to introduced, but it can be simply explained as a process that involves sorting through large amounts of raw data to extract valuable information needed by industries and enterprises in various fields. In most cases this is done by professionals, professional organizations and financial analysts. He has seen considerable growth in the number of sectors or groups that enter my self.
There are a number of reasons why there is a rapid growth in data mining outsourcing service subscriptions. Some of them are presented below:

A wide range of services

Many companies are turning to information mining outsourcing, because they cover a wide range of services. These services include, but are not limited to data from web applications congregation database, collect contact information from different sites, extract data from websites using the software, the sort of stories from sources news, information and accumulate commercial competitors.

Many companies fall

Many industries benefit because it is fast and realistic. The information extracted by data mining service providers of outsourcing used in crucial decisions in the field of direct marketing, e-commerce, customer relationship management, health, scientific tests and other experimental work, telecommunications, financial services, and a whole lot more.

A lot of advantages

Subscribe data mining outsourcing services it's offers many benefits, as providers assures customers to render services to world standards. They strive to work with improved technologies, scalability, sophisticated infrastructure, resources, timeliness, cost, the system safer for the security of information and increased market coverage.

Outsourcing allows companies to focus their core business and can improve overall productivity. Not surprisingly, information mining outsourcing has been a first choice of many companies - to propel the business to higher profits.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/5303589

Note:

Delta Ray is experienced web scraping consultant and writes articles on Hotels Data Scraping, Hotel pronto, Expedia, Tripadvisor Data Scraping, Amazon Product Scraping, Linkedin Email Scraping, Screen Scraping Services, Yelp Review Scraping and yellowpages data scraping etc.

Data Mining Questions? Some Back-Of-The-Envelope Answers

Data mining, the discovery and modeling of hidden patterns in large volumes of data, is becoming a mainstream technology. And yet, for many, the prospect of initiating a data mining (DM) project remains daunting. Chief among the concerns of those considering DM is, "How do I know if data mining is right for my organization?"

A meaningful response to this concern hinges on three underlying questions:

    Economics - Do you have a pressing business/economic need, a "pain" that needs to be addressed immediately?
    Data - Do you have, or can you acquire, sufficient data that are relevant to the business need?
    Performance - Do you need a DM solution to produce a moderate gain in business performance compared to current practice?

By the time you finish reading this article, you will be able to answer these questions for yourself on the back of an envelope. If all answers are yes, data mining is a good fit for your business need. Any no answers indicate areas to focus on before proceeding with DM.

In the following sections, we'll consider each of the above questions in the context of a sales and marketing case study. Since DM applies to a wide spectrum of industries, we will also generalize each of the solution principles.

To begin, suppose that Donna is the VP of Marketing for a trade organization. She is responsible for several trade shows and a large annual meeting. Attendance was good for many years, and she and her staff focused their efforts on creating an excellent meeting experience (program plus venue). Recently, however, there has been declining response to promotions, and a simultaneous decline in attendance. Is data mining right for Donna and her organization?

Economics - Begin with economics - Is there a pressing business need? Donna knows that meeting attendance was down 15% this year. If that trend continues for two more years, turnout will be only about 60% of its previous level (85% x 85% x 85%), and she knows that the annual meeting is not sustainable at that level. It is critical, then, to improve the attendance, but to do so profitably. Yes, Donna has an economic need.

Generally speaking, data mining can address a wide variety of business "pains". If your company is experiencing rapid growth, DM can identify promising new retail locations or find more prospects for your online service. Conversely, if your organization is facing declining sales, DM can improve retention or identify your best existing customers for cross-selling and upselling. It is not advisable, however, to start a data mining effort without explicitly identifying a critical business need. Vast sums have been spent wastefully on mining data for "nuggets" of knowledge that have little or no value to the enterprise.

Data - Next, consider your data assets - Are sufficient, relevant data available? Donna has a spreadsheet that captures several years of meeting registrations (who attended). She also maintains a promotion history (who was sent a meeting invitation) in a simple database. So, information is available about the stimulus (sending invitations) and the response (did/did not attend). This data is clearly relevant to understanding and improving future attendance.

Donna's multi-year registration spreadsheet contains about 10,000 names. The promotion history database is even larger because many invitations are sent for each meeting, both to prior attendees and to prospects who have never attended. Sounds like plenty of data, but to be sure, it is useful to think about the factors that might be predictive of future attendance. Donna consults her intuitive knowledge of the meeting participants and lists four key factors:

    attended previously
    age
    size of company
    industry

To get a reasonable estimate for the amount of data required, we can use the following rule of thumb, developed from many years of experience:

Number of records needed ≥ 60 x 2^N (where N is the number of factors)

Since Donna listed 4 key factors, the above formula estimates that she needs 960 records (60 x 2^4 = 60 x 16). Since she has more than 10,000, we conclude Yes, Donna has relevant and sufficient data for DM.

More generally, in considering your own situation, it is important to have data that represents:

    stimulus and response (what was done and what happened)
    positive and negative outcomes

Simply put, you need data on both what works and what doesn't.

Performance - Finally, performance - Is a moderate improvement required relative to current benchmarks? Donna would like to increase attendance back to its previous level without increasing her promotion costs. She determines that the response rate to promotions needs to increase from 2% to 2.5% to meet her goals. In data mining terms, a moderate improvement is generally in the range of 10% to 100%. Donna's need is in this interval, at 25%. For her, Yes, a moderate performance increase is needed.

The performance question is typically the hardest one to address prior to starting a project. Performance is an outcome of the data mining effort, not a precursor to it. There are no guarantees, but we can use past experience as a guide. As noted for Donna above, incremental-to-moderate improvements are reasonable to expect with data mining. But don't expect DM to produce a miracle.

Conclusion

Summarizing, to determine if data mining fits your organization, you must consider:

    your business need
    your available data assets
    the performance improvement required

In the case study, Donna answered yes to each of the questions posed. She is well-positioned to proceed with a data mining project. You, too, can apply the same thought process before you spend a single dollar on DM. If you decide there is a fit, this preparation will serve you well in talking with your staff, vendors, and consultants who can help you move a data mining project forward.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6047713

Note:

Delta Ray is experienced web scraping consultant and writes articles on Hotelscombined Data Scraping, Hotelclub Data Scraping, Amazon Product Scraping, Linkedin Email Scraping, Screen Scraping Services, Yelp Review Scraping and yellowpages data scraping etc.

TRAVELtech: Webjet CEO Noon calls the AU market sales of Expedia, Zuji and more

Final speaker of the first session was Webjet CEO Richard Noon. Had a great slide that I was able to quickly copy down to share with you. He showed his estimation of the annual Gross Bookings of major full service OTAs in Australia. Here is that graph as I copied it.

If you are interested in the Australian turnover of Webjet, Expedia, Bestflights, Zuji, Lastminute.com.au, travel.com.au and online for flight centre check it out.

He prepared a formula using comparative page views and PhoCusWright estimates of the Australia online travel market. He took the page views of each of the players locally and then apportioned gross bookings from the PhoCusWright estimates of total Australian OTA sales.

Later during the panel session these numbers were put to each of the bosses of Zuji and Expedia.

Expedia AU MD Arthur Hoffman dismissed the $80mm estimate for Expedia saying that this was a very pessimistic view. That actual number was "far north of that".

Zuji CEO Scott Blume - "took the fifth" when asked about the $30mm estimate. Saying that they do not break out their bookings.

Source: http://tims-boot.blogspot.in/2008/08/traveltech-webjet-ceo-noon-calls-au.html

Note:

Delta Ray is experienced web scraping consultant and writes articles on Hotels Data Scraping, Hotelpronto, Expedia, Tripadvisor Data Scraping, Amazon Product Scraping, Linkedin Email Scraping, Screen Scraping Services, Yelp Review Scraping and yellowpages data scraping etc.