Why does Booking still own OpenTable?
And if it ever sells… who’s buying?
Eleven years ago, Booking Holdings, then named the Priceline Group, acquired OpenTable for $2.6 billion. Booking owns a handful travel brands, including Priceline, Kayak, and RentalCars.com, but its pricey OpenTable buy was a big leap into the restaurant business from a company now worth about $180 billion. Separately, Booking and OpenTable are thriving. That doesn’t make them better together.
Seven years ago, I sat (uncomfortably, pregnant with my second baby) in the audience of a travel industry conference in New York, listening as Booking’s CEO, Glenn Fogel, admitted his company was falling short on its plans to integrate OpenTable into its travel- and experience-booking platforms.
“We have not done everything I wanted to do when we did the deal with OpenTable… yet,” he said. “We should be able to do something between the power of OpenTable and the power of our hotel brands, and be able to do it so it’s better for the customer.”
Yes, they should! I thought.
Fogel offered a few easy-to-envision suggestions. Restaurants could pull from the Booking’s robust data stores to offer visiting diners perks like free deserts and better tables, he said. Booking could become a marketing tool for OpenTable’s restaurants hoping to reach nearby travelers. It would work, because as Priceline’s then-CEO, Darren Huston, said bluntly at the time of the 2014 acquisition, “Travelers are diners.”
Wall Street analysts readily agreed, calling the deal “a no-brainer.”
It was, in theory.
In the decade since the deal, Booking’s brands have linked up… a little. Eventually, for example, diners could cash in OpenTable loyalty points for discounts on hotel stays booked on Kayak, a travel search engine. But OpenTable killed that program last summer, and larger promised synergies haven’t materialized to pushed the reservations service forward. Instead, OpenTable is looking outside of its corporate lineage to grow.
Maybe it’s time for Amsterdam-based Booking to let go?
Booking Holdings reported second-quarter earnings earlier this week.
During the call’s prepared remarks, Fogel, now in his ninth year as CEO, touted OpenTable’s new AI-powered concierge as proof of Booking’s bet on the tech to improve customer satisfaction. Booking doesn’t break out the financial performance of its individual brands, but did note in its filing that OpenTable’s growth contributed to an increase in revenue for the quarter.