Priceline buying restaurant reservation website OpenTable for $2.6 billion shows the expansion of the hospitality space growing ever more competitive. It was only a matter of time until restaurants became a bigger part of the tourism mix. If ever there were an “all in one” travel company emerging, Priceline may have just bid Sayonara! to its competition.
Priceline’s William Shatner in a Point Break parody commercial
According to this lastest news from Priceline, the company is set to tender an offer of $103 per share for OpenTable.com. Taking aim at table reservations is actually the smart move, most experts agree, as OpenTable offers up more than 23,000 North American restaurants to tens of millions of diners every month. Just the branding aspect of the deal boosts Priceline’s already stable travel booking business.
Priceline’s earlier acquisition of Seattle based marketing suite company Buuteeq bumped shares of PCLN a bit. Certainly Friday’s announcement will boost even further the already positive trend for Darren Huston’s growing company. Buuteeq, for those unaware, is one of the first companies to table cloud software and web design, seamless booking, and integrated analytics all under one roof. Now you can book almost anything to do with travel, even boost your hotel revenue aspect, using Priceline products. And we were worried Google would get a monopoly.
Where will this latest acquisition take Priceline? As spokesperson William Shatner says in his latest commercial, “we’ll see where the waves take him. Sayonara!”