Expedia Group Rides AI-Powered Search Wave with Traveler-Centric Marketing
The travel industry is undergoing a transformation as consumers increasingly rely on AI-powered search to navigate their research, comparison, and booking processes. Expedia Group is at the forefront of this shift, leveraging 30 years of experience to reimagine marketing for today's empowered traveler.
Eric Gottloeb, VP of performance marketing, and Daniel Shin Un Kang, head of organic and agentic search, shared their insights with Think with Google on how AI is changing the game in the travel space. 'The fundamentals of delighting consumers haven't changed,' says Kang, 'what has changed is the medium of search, from keywords to conversations.'
To meet this new reality, Expedia Group is building new capabilities within its marketing function. One innovation is its 'Business-to-Agents' practice, which complements B2C and B2B marketing capabilities by studying agent behaviors and employing emerging communication protocols like Google's Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP).
By taking a traveler-first approach and organizing teams around the customer journey, Expedia Group has achieved significant results. 'We take a very traveler-first approach, regardless of what our org structure looks like,' says Gottloeb. This shift has enabled the company to take a longer-term view into results and drive growth with search by delivering personalization at scale.