Expedia is preparing to spend about 1 billion dollars for marketing their business and promoting their sales for the months ahead, which will serve as a clear indication to the rapidly increasing fortunes of this online travel giant and the popularity they have gained among travelers who are turning to the internet more and more everyday to book their travel arrangements.  Expedia has made a confirmation that by the end of 2008 they will have spent 1 billion dollars in marketing, and this is sanctioned by the sales growth that they have had for the past 1 ½ years.  They will be investing about 40% of their revenue into their marketing efforts by the end of the year as they are aiming to expand their online business even further.  Expedia has spent 29% more than last year in just the first 3 months of this year already.

The firm is now spending more on their marketing than they are on any of their other business aspects, considering the the expenses related to their administration only compromise about 11% of their total revenue, and only 7% of that is spent to maintain and develop the technologies that are for the online business core of the firm.  The chief executive officer for Expedia, Dara Khosrowshahi, has told journalists that the firm has generated profits of more than 51 million dollars within just the first quarter of the year, and that represents a 48% increase from the profit that they had within the first quarter of last year.  The firm is known to for spending particularly large sums of money in order to generate traffic through television and keyword search engines.  They also spend about 22% of their profit on salaries on their staff and other expenses related to that.  Now, Americans are booking about 50% of their holidays online, and Expedia thinks that this figure will increase more in years ahead.

Visit the Expedia website for booking at:  www.expedia.com