US online travel firm Expedia to buy controlling stake in Germany’s trivago for $632 mn

Expedia Inc, the world's largest online travel company,  yesterday said that it would acquire a 61.6 per cent stake in trivago, a German search engine that focuses on hotels, in a (€477 million) $632 million cash and stock deal, in order to expand its footprint in Europe.

Expedia, which competes with Priceline and Orbitz Worldwide, will pay €434 million in cash and €43 million in its own stock.

Founded in 2005, Dusseldorf, Germany-based trivago is an online metasearch site which compares hotel rates from over 600,000 hotels on over 140 booking sites in over 30 countries in 23 languages, while also offering over 34 million integrated hotel reviews, accompanied by 14 million photos.

Over 18 million visitors per month use trivago and through its cost-per-click revenue model, trivago profitably doubled revenue each year since 2008 and currently expects to generate approximately €100 million in net revenue in 2012.

"The trivago team built one of the largest, fastest growing and most well known travel sites in Europe conducting more than 100 million hotel searches annually through a culture focused on developing great products, building a strong brand and promoting partners' businesses," said Dara Khosrowshahi, president and CEO of Expedia.

"We are very excited to join the Expedia portfolio and eager to learn from their experience, having built-up some of the world's most trusted travel brands," said Rolf Schromgens, trivago co-founder and managing director.''