With Booking’s Etraveli Deal Still Blocked, Expedia Has the Edge in M&A

Expedia Group acquired Tiqets and Cartrawler this year to strengthen its B2B partner business but Booking Holdings has fewer M&A options following a European court ruling Wednesday. Europe's General Court upheld a 2023 decision to prohibit Booking Holdings’ roughly €1.63 billion ($1.9 billion) acquisition of Etraveli, the Swedish flights specialist and Booking partner. The court's reasoning was that flight bookings are a low-margin customer-acquisition channel that feeds travelers into Booking's high-margin hotel business and reinforces Booking's grip on the core market where the European Commission found it has a "dominant position." The ruling not only impacts Booking and Etraveli, but the wider mergers and acquisitions scene in European travel and other sectors. The broader significance is that t