In An Attempt to Further Wow Its Customers, Expedia Attempts To Provide Voice Search Services Through Amazon Alexa

December 13th, 2016 by Trefis Team
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Recently, we had written about how Expedia is planning to become the first $100 billion online travel company. One of the main drivers to help Expedia reach its target is technological investments. In one of its moves towards technological advancements, Expedia has recently announced voice activated searches on its platform through Amazon Alexa. This is the company’s first move towards introducing a voice activated search product and it marks progress in Expedia’s ongoing work on the processing of natural language. The feature will enable Expedia customers to ask Alexa about the status of their existing flight reservations, it will help them rent cars and also answer queries about the customers’ loyalty program numbers. Though travelers will not yet be able to book flights or hotels via this voice service, it might not be very long before these features, too, get launched.

However, this is not the first attempt by an OTA to introduce voice based services. Global OTA leader, Priceline’s metasearch platform, Kayak, also employs Alexa to help its customers on checking the prices of flight, hotel, and car-rental prices. Though Kayak also doesn’t allow bookings through Alexa, however, its Kayak Explore feature helps with suggestions on vacation destinations.

Online travel companies are increasingly expanding their presence through social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, iPhone, Samsung, and now Alexa. With the advent of the perpetually digitally connected travelers, it is imperative to push services through all platforms in order to capture a greater market share.

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Bigger companies such as Expedia and Priceline always have a comparative advantage in making their presence felt through a greater number of platforms because of their capital to fund technological investments. Though currently this is a small step by Expedia to introduce voice based search, this might be a significant driver for growth in the future . We expect Expedia to utilize its ‘first mover advantage’ to stay ahead of the competition in this area.

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