Today, Expedia Inc. announced an agreement to buy Venere.com from current owners Advent International and Venere’s founders.
Venere was founded in 1995. Global private equity firm Advent International acquired a 60% controlling stake in the company in November 2006. The other 40% in stakes remained in the hands of Venere’s founders. Venere.com offers 29,000 hotels around the world, 26,000 of which in Europe. Venere.com is currently adding accommodation properties at a rate of more than 1,000 per month.
For Expedia Inc, global leader in online travel, the transaction will add more than 10,000 incremental hotels and other types of accommodation such as B&B and vacation rentals in Europe, the Middle East and Africa to its worldwide lodging offering.
Dara Khosrowshahi, President and CEO of Expedia, Inc.:
Acquiring Venere will bring a well-known, respected European consumer brand to the Expedia portfolio. Additionally, it will immediately expand our supply footprint in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and enable Expedia to diversify our business model approach to hotel partners worldwide.
Marco Ficarra, CEO of Venere Net S.p.A.:
We are thrilled at the prospect of becoming part of Expedia because our dedication to offering superior service to travelers via our extensive network of hotels and Bed and Breakfasts is a great fit with the most respected group of brands in travel. In addition, our team of passionate travel professionals located in Rome, London and Paris will complement Expedia’s global team, as we continue to provide hotels new ways to optimize their distribution mix.
Topic: Venere Vibes |
20 Comments
Tags: expedia, travel industry, Venere
20 responses to “Expedia to Buy Venere.com”
Report an inappropriate commentJuly 15th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Does this mean that we must use the Expedia web page soon, instead of the very much better Venere web page? Or will Venere survive?
July 15th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
No worries, you can keep using the venere.com web site as always
July 16th, 2008 at 1:28 am
Hi, i just wanted to know how this will impact future online reservations? will they be expedia reservations or venere reservations? what exactly will change? will there be more job opportunities available?
July 16th, 2008 at 3:32 am
Will you still offer the ability to reserve hotels with credit card guarantee or will you have to pre-pay like Expedia?
July 16th, 2008 at 9:13 am
Linda and MB,
Reservations made on the venere.com web site will still be Venere reservations, made with a credit card to guarantee your booking without prepayment.
I am sure that Venere being part of the Expedia family will continue to create great job opportunities as always.
July 16th, 2008 at 9:44 am
Expenere or Venepedia ?
July 16th, 2008 at 10:15 am
Venere will continue operations as an independent unit, bringing value to the Group by adding its well developed hotel online reservation business, based on the agency model.
The organization of Venere will remain largely autonomous from Expedia, both in relationship with the hotel supply as well as with the demand generation.
July 16th, 2008 at 10:16 am
Q&A
How will the Venere brand be integrated with Expedia brand?
At this time we expect that Expedia and Venere will continue to operate as separate and distinct entities.
Will Expedia continue to grow Venere’s consumer-facing presence?
Yes, it is expected that Venere.com continue as a distinct brand and consumer site within the Expedia, Inc. portfolio.
How will the Venere supply team integrate with the Expedia supply team?
Each team would continue to manage their supplier relationships as separate and independent entities.
What will be the corporate reporting structure, i.e. who will Venere mgmt report to within Expedia?
Similar to the other brands within the Expedia, Inc. portfolio, the CEO of Venere, Marco Ficarra, would become a direct report of Expedia, Inc. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.
Will suppliers with relationships with both companies maintain relationships/contracts with Venere and Expedia as two separate parties?
For hotels that currently work with either one or both Expedia and Venere, there would be no immediate change in how the relationship is handled.
Will there be any changes for hotels that work with both brands?
At this time, we expect the Expedia and Venere marketplaces to remain separate and distinct.
July 16th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Will Expedia take part in donating a portion of their sales to AMREF as Venere does?
July 16th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
What an interesting blog!
July 17th, 2008 at 7:46 am
Rebecca,
thank you for your question on charity, it does bring an additional and very valuable perspective to the deal between Venere and Expedia. As for private individuals, there are different ways for companies to support pro-bono organizations, more or less visible, more or less direct. Coherently with the foreseen organizational autonomy, also charity plans are expected to remain independent.
July 22nd, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Sad reading.
Venere was a good company with a good business model. Let’s hope that Expedia will allow it to maintain it’s independence - although I doubt this.
Reducing the playing field to a few big distributors only limits the consumers choice and funnels revenues to the chosen few.
Lets see what the future brings
July 22nd, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Loved No. 6… Ermenegild says: Expenere or Venepedia ?…
So, the next step, is Booking to be sold to Travelocity, to make Travelooking or Bookilocity ?…
As a frequent user with Venere, let’s hope that they will continue as now without payment, which is very convinient to us all.
My next vacation - Amalfy region (october) - with Venere, of course.
July 25th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Being informed about the integration of Venere to Expedia came as a surprice for me.My first impressions when I read the article were both good and bad.Good because the “giant” of the travel industry called Expedia finally “went down from its throne” and decided to lend a helping hand,where there was no need for,to an experienced and well organized firm like Venere.On the other hand,during the years passed one thing came to my senses as a preofessional in tourism industry,that everything has its price,everything is used for profit,all efforts made by experienced people to progress do not count but can be bought up.Let us not be messengers of bad news though and wish full success to Venere.
July 29th, 2008 at 8:15 am
This is sad news. Venere is by far the best web page that can be found and their businessconcept is so much better than what I have seen from Expedia. It’s only to hope that Venere will continue as an independent company - or that someone else will start up a new company based on the same ideas as Venere. Thanks to the Venere staff for and excellent service - the same cannot be said about the Expedia people.
July 30th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Venere.com is better then Expedia.
Expedia is a flop.
July 31st, 2008 at 10:01 am
Common guys - If you are going to be so critical about Expedia then state your full name the company you represent, and substantiate your criticism.
It’s not that I disagree with you - but to many whine in the background afraid of standing out publicly.
July 31st, 2008 at 10:33 am
Will expedia quickconnect be available for venere.com sometime in the future?
July 31st, 2008 at 10:33 pm
I must agree with some other opinions that Venere is much better than Expedia. Let’s hope Venere does remain independent. As a travel consultant I wonder if our commissions will be protected? Hopefully the ability to hold a reservation with a credit card will not change as I never book hotels for my clients that need to be prepaid.
August 4th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Dear commenters,
we at venere.com are taking great pride from your generous comments about our activities, our business model, our website etc. It is fair to say that, although we cannot afford to live only for this, at the same time we definitely could not live without your appreciation for what we do with so much passion.
The fact that a leading firm like Expedia (we see it is not getting full marks on our blog, but it is understandable that there may be users, within the venere.com community, that may like Venere more than our competitors) showed in a tangible way its interest for our business is an additional demonstration that your comments are not only widely shared across the community of our users, but that the major online travel operators are well aware of this, and are ready to support and increase our developments.
Concerning the way it will happen, we are very confident that this acquisition will provide Venere with more resources, and not with reduced autonomy; as a consequence we should all be able to have more rather than less.
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