
He may be the President and Chief Executive Officer, Expedia and President, Expedia Worldwide, but at heart Dara Khosrowshahi remains a product guy.
I know this because he became truly animated when he showed me the Expedia Hotels & Flights app on his iPhone.
"It's so tactile. We take care with the transitions. We didn't have to put images but we did. And instead of click to purchase, it's slide to purchase," he said, as he slides his finger over the screen.
"It's useful and beautiful," he finished with a flourish.
And making "useful and beautiful" products and "creating experiences that delight the customer" through technology and product expertise is what will create loyalty in the online world and how Expedia will differentiate itself from the competition.
"Our competitive advantage is that we are, bar none, the best technology company in travel, that serves and delights the customer."
His picks of beautiful products in the online world – Amazon, "unbelievably easy and dependable"; Google search product, "fast and simple proposition"; Apple products; Netflix, "it surfaces great content that I didn't know existed" – discovery.
For Expedia, he wants its products to be able to one, answer any or all questions that a consumer has in a very direct, simple way, two, get them all the information before they make the booking, and three, make the booking fast, easy, simple.

He's not interested in the discovery piece – "it's very distributed, you can ask friends, read the papers, to build a product that captures that, it's too hard".
Said Khosrowshahi, "Our app, especially when we add air, will be the best the industry's ever seen."
Developed by Mobiata, a company it acquired in November 2010, the Expedia Hotels & Flights app, which was named the People's Voice Travel App in the 17th Annual Webby Awards this month, has seen 30 million downloads and close to 20% of Expedia Inc's volumes are coming from some sort of mobile platform, he said. The app will be launched in Asia in a couple of months' time.
But back to the real reason why Khosrowshahi is in Singapore, his second to the city and his first visit since the joint venture came under new leadership.
Asia Pacific the future for Expedia"Asia Pacific is already the biggest travel market in the world, worth US$350 billion, bigger than US or Europe. If you want to be a global business, then you have to be here and build up your services here.
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