Expedia will soon became the biggest player in the online travel retail market. The company announced today that it will buy Orbitz Worldwide for $1.6 billion, . In addition to picking up Orbitz.com in the deal, Expedia will acquire Orbitz-run sites , , and .
The announcement was a surprise to industry experts, . It comes less than a month after Expedia acquired Sabre Corp.鈥檚 Travelocity (a smaller $280 million deal), .
The mergers mark a significant consolidation of the online travel industry. Expedia already owns Hotwire, Hotels.com, and Trivago and has now knocked two of its former rivals out of the game.
Expedia鈥檚 biggest competition now is Priceline, which acquired in 2013 and in 2014 and is the second-largest company in online travel. The third-largest company, , has been gobbling up smaller, more boutique brands in the past few years, like , , , and .
The immediate impact on Orbitz鈥檚 operations is unclear. Skift reports that the Orbitz brands would continue to operate separately (and compete with Expedia鈥檚 holdings), but hotel offerings on Orbitz would expand since Expedia .
Some analysts believe these mergers may draw the attention of antitrust regulators in the U.S. Justice Department or the Federal Trade Commission, .
Market shares of all three big players鈥擡xpedia, Priceline, and TripAdvisor鈥攂oomed following the news.