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Investment Overview for Expedia (NASDAQ:EXPE)
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Below are key drivers of Expedia's value that present opportunities for upside or downside to the current Trefis price estimate for Expedia:
Hotel Bookings
- Expedia's Market Share of Occupied Hotel Rooms: We currently forecast Expedia's share of the occupied hotel rooms globally to increase from 2.5% in 2012 to 2.7% by 2019. There could be a 6% downside to the Trefis price estimate if Expedia's share remained flat over our forecast horizon instead.
- EBITDA Margin on Hotel Bookings: We currently forecast EBITDA Margin from Hotel Bookings to increase from 17.56% in 2012 to 18.2% by 2019. There would be a 17% upside to the Trefis price estimate if the margins were to increase to the historical levels of 23%-24% over our forecast period.
Egencia Corporate Travel Services
- EBITDA Margin on Egencia Corporate Travel Services: We currently forecast EBITDA Margin for Expedia's Egencia Corporate Travel Services to increase from 12.3% in 2012 to close to 13% by 2019. There would be a marginal downside to the Trefis price estimate if the EBITDA Margins were to decline to the historical levels of close to 7% by the end of the forecast period.
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Expedia (NASDAQ: EXPE) is the largest online travel services provider in the world, in terms of booking volumes. It operates online travel portals such as expedia.com, hotels.com and hotwire.com that help connect travelers with travel suppliers such as hotels, airlines, cruises and car rentals companies.
Expedia's corporate travel business, Egencia (egencia.com), provides custom travel products and services to corporate travelers and businesses seeking to optimize travel costs and to improve their employees travel experiences.
While serving as a global travel marketplace, Expedia broadly makes money by either (i) acting as a travel agent and charging a commission (known as the processing fee or the booking fee) on every transaction or by (ii) acting as a merchant and purchasing the travel inventory (air tickets and hotel stays) from the travel providers (airlines and hotels) in bulk at discounted prices and selling the same to the customers at a premium. In addition to this, Expedia sells advertising on its websites and companies (mostly travel suppliers-hotels and airlines) either pay-per-click or pay a flat fee for the duration of advertising.
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Expedia's Hotel Bookings business is the primary source of value for the following reason.
Higher Revenue Margins from Hotel Bookings
Hotel Bookings Revenue Margin earned is significantly higher than the commission earned from Airline Tickets Bookings. Airline tickets gross bookings in 2012 was ~1.03x the gross bookings for hotels, however the revenue margins (revenue earned by Expedia as a percentage of the size of booking) earned on hotel bookings was almost 10x the commission Expedia earns on the airline tickets it sells (19.7%) for Hotels vs. 2.1% for airline tickets). With the result, Expedia's revenue from hotel bookings was over 9x the revenue from Airline Tickets Bookings.
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The following factors determine the fate of the online travel industry
Macroeconomic Environment
- Due to the discretionary nature of leisure travel, online travel service providers which earn revenue in the proportion (and as a percentage of) of travel bookings, depend entirely on the macroeconomic conditions (employment levels, inflation rates etc). Corporate travel is in fact one of the prime indicators of economic activity and is influenced the most by the macroeconomic conditions. During the recessionary times of 2008-09, both corporate and leisure travel plummeted. Amidst rising unemployment and declining disposable income levels the consumers cut back on their travel plans first before making adjustments to other expenses.
- Advertising which constitutes a significant source of revenue for online travel service providers depends on the level of business activity. Amidst recessionary times, businesses cut back on media and advertising spending and this translates into lower online advertising revenue for travel portals such as expedia.com and priceline.com.
- Foreign Exchange
- Leisure travelers unlike corporations do not hedge themselves against foreign exchange fluctuations. Hence, the spot foreign exchange rates determine the consumer demand for international travel. In times of adverse foreign exchange rate movements (such as a depreciating dollar), international travel becomes dearer and the same hotel booking and air tickets cost more dollars, thereby discouraging travel bookings.
- Travel service providers such as Expedia and Priceline, earn revenues from international bookings in foreign currencies but incur most operating expenses in dollars and report the earnings in dollars. Adverse foreign exchange movements could erode profits. Since an increasing proportion of bookings are coming from the less penetrated emerging economies, the exposure to foreign exchange is expected to increase in the future.
- Fuel Prices
- Rising fuel prices has the immediate impact of increasing airfares which discourages travel. This not only impacts air ticket bookings but also negatively impacts hotel bookings and destination services such as car rentals and cruises. Decline in the overall bookings hits travel service providers' revenues.
- With rises in fuel prices, airlines are no longer able to offer significant discounts on bulk bookings to travel agents such as Expedia. With the result, the revenue margins earned by travel service providers (under merchant model) take a hit. The lower revenue margins translate into lower profit margins for the travel service providers.
- Significant impact of unforeseen events on travel
- Events which are beyond the control of any travel services provider and can critically impact travel include terrorist attacks, unusual weather patterns and natural disasters(hurricanes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions), travel related health concerns (Influenza H1N1, avian bird flue SARS), political unrest and other unpredictable events. Unlike other industries such events have a very significant impact on travel bookings and consequently on the revenues of travel service providers.
- Internet Penetration
- While US has over 78% of internet users, the proportion of Europe’s population online is close to 61%, with the internet penetration in Asia being even lower, at 26%.
Hence, the increased internet adoption and rise in e-commerce will favor travel providers such as Expedia, Priceline, Travelocity and Orbitz.
- Airline Industry
- The airline industry has been suffering from chronic overcapacity leading to lower occupancy rates. This coupled with high volatility in fuel prices has led to the following structural changes in the aviation industry.
- Domestic airlines have recently reduced capacity and increased fares. In addition, the threat of carrier bankruptcies and the emerging prospect of industry consolidation, as evidenced by the mergers of United Air Lines with Continental Airlines and Delta Air Lines with Northwest Airlines, as well as the recently announced future acquisition of AirTran by Southwest Airlines, could lead to additional decreases in capacity. It could also lead to a reduction in the amount of tickets available to online travel service providers for bulk purchase under their merchant business model. Going forward, the air seats capacity is expected to increase at a lower rate compared to the demand for air travel. This shall not only increase the airfares as a whole but also as consumers shy away from travel, hotel bookings and other travel services are also expected to be hit by this leading to lower revenues growth for travel service providers.
- Airlines are increasingly selling tickets online directly from their own websites, thereby eliminating the need for online travel agents. With the result, online travel service providers have been compelled to remove processing fees on air ticket bookings and the cancellation and rescheduling of fees in excess of that charged by the airline itself.
- Hotels and Lodging Industry
- During the recessionary times of 2008-09, as travel declined, so did hotels occupancy rates (the proportion of hotel rooms occupied per year). To meet the operating expenses (since hospitality business has a significantly higher proportion of fixed costs), hotel owners resorted to offering discounts and lower tariffs. This led to a drop in the Average Daily Rate (the average rate per night of hotel booking). Hotels bookings took a hit and adversely impacted the revenues for travel service providers.
- At 19.7%, hotel Bookings offer markedly higher Revenue Margins (Revenue earned by the travel service provider as a percentage of the size of booking) compared to Air Ticket bookings (~2%) and Cruises and Car Rentals (>10%). Hence, travel services providers make maximum profits from hotel bookings.
- The hotels market in Europe and Asia is much more fragmented with smaller, independent lodgings compared to the US, where the hotel market is dominated by large hotel chains. Hotel chains are more likely to offer online bookings through their own websites, while online travel agencies such as Expedia are more appealing to small, independent hotels outside the US. Travel agencies stand to make higher revenue margins from independent budget hotels under their merchant business model, hence expansion into the hotel markets in Asia and Eastern Europe presents US based online travel service providers with growth opportunities.
- Online travel services is highly competitive niche segment within the travel industry.
- Competition in the US online travel market remains intense and traditional online travel companies are creating new promotions and consumer value features in an effort to gain a competitive advantage.
- In June 2007, Priceline eliminated processing fees for its price-disclosed airline ticket services, and in April 2008, it reduced processing fees for its domestic price-disclosed merchant hotel room service. Starting in March 2009, Expedia and Travelocity also eliminated air booking fees, and in April 2009, Orbitz followed. In April 2009, Expedia and Orbitz reduced booking fees on hotel room reservations. As a result of this, no one player could maintain a price advantage over the others on price-disclosed merchant air tickets and hotel room reservations, and the online travel industry as a whole lost revenues.
- In October 2009, Travelocity announced the waiver of its cancellation and change fees for hotel and vacation packages as well as an expanded hotel guarantee, under which consumers who book a hotel room and then find a lower published rate for the same room anytime before the day of check-in are eligible to receive a refund of the difference.
- Since consumers are now increasingly looking for bargains and discounts, traffic obtained through online advertising has increased as a percentage of total demand since the same consumer visits several websites before making a purchase decision. This increased shopping behavior has reduced advertising efficiency and effectiveness as traffic obtained through online advertising becomes less likely to result in a purchase on the web site. Therefore, online advertising expenses for the company have increased at a faster rate than gross profit, a trend which is expected to continue in the future.
- Threat from Online Search Engines
- Large and established internet search engines with substantial resources and expertise in developing online commerce and facilitating internet traffic are creating and intend to further create inroads into online travel, both in the U.S. and internationally.
- Google recently acquired ITA Software, Inc., a major flight information software company, which could allowed it to pursue the creation of a new flight search tool which enables users to find flight information on the internet without using the services of Expedia or Priceline etc. Google has also invested in HomeAway, a vacation home rental service.
- Google has also launched a travel “meta-search” site to show searchers specific hotels and rates in addition to text advertisements, and Microsoft has launched Bing Travel, a “meta-search” site which searches for airfare and hotel reservations online and predicts the best time to purchase them. “Meta-search” sites leverage their search technology to aggregate travel search results for the searcher’s specific itinerary across supplier, travel agent and other websites and in many instances, compete directly with online travel service providers for customers.
How Does Trefis Modelling Work?
How do we get the historical numbers for this chart?
Trefis has a team of in-house Analysts who gather historical data from company filings and other verifiable sources. When historicals are available, we explain how we got them at the bottom of the Trefis analysis section below.
Who came up with the Trefis forecast for future years?
The Trefis team of in-house Analysts considers a variety of factors when projecting any forecast. The rationale for our projections is explained in the Trefis analysis section below.
How does my dragging the trendline on the chart impact the stock price?
- We use forecasts for business drivers to calculate forecasted Revenues and Profits for each division of the company.
- We then use forecasted Profits in a Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model to obtain the Price Estimate for the company.
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