Expedia Group sales interviews test whether candidates understand how to sell a two-sided travel marketplace to hotel and vacation rental suppliers who need distribution reach, to B2B technology partners who want embedded travel booking capabilities, and to advertisers who want access to the high-intent travel audience that Expedia's platforms attract – where selling at an OTA requires understanding platform economics, supplier rate strategy, and the competitive landscape where hotels increasingly want to reduce their OTA dependency even as OTAs remain their most scalable demand source. Sales at Expedia spans hotel and lodging supplier acquisition and management (where hotels, vacation rental properties, and alternative accommodations list their inventory on Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Vrbo, and other Expedia Group brands – and where Expedia's account managers must demonstrate that listing on Expedia platforms generates incremental demand beyond what the property would capture through direct booking and non-Expedia OTA channels), Expedia Partner Solutions B2B sales (where EPS provides white-label travel booking technology and inventory access to airlines, banks, credit card companies, and corporate travel platforms that embed Expedia's travel content within their own products – requiring sales that explains the technical integration value and revenue-sharing economics of a platform partnership), media and advertising solutions (where Expedia's high-intent travel audience – consumers who are actively planning trips – creates advertising inventory that airlines, hotel chains, car rental companies, and tourism boards purchase through Expedia's media solutions platform), and Vrbo vacation rental owner and property manager acquisition (where individual vacation rental owners and professional property management companies list properties on Vrbo and where sales must address the owner's concern about Airbnb competition and Vrbo's relative market share). Interviewers evaluate whether candidates understand OTA platform economics, supplier rate strategy, EPS B2B partnership economics, and the competitive pressure that direct booking initiatives create for OTA supplier relationships.

Start your free Expedia Sales practice session.

What interviewers actually evaluate

OTA Platform Economics, Supplier Rate Strategy, and B2B Partnership Selling for Online Travel

Expedia Group sales interviews probe whether candidates understand how selling travel platform distribution differs from general B2B sales in the rate parity and supplier relationship complexity (hotels that list on Expedia's platforms have historically been required to offer rates at least as favorable as those available through other channels under rate parity agreements – but rate parity has faced regulatory scrutiny in Europe and hotels have increasingly negotiated preferred rate arrangements for their own direct booking channels, creating a supplier relationship dynamic where Expedia must demonstrate demand volume that justifies the commission cost of OTA distribution rather than relying on contractual rate parity to maintain competitive inventory pricing), the OTA commission economics conversation (Expedia charges hotels a commission on bookings generated through its platforms, typically ranging from 10 to 25 percent depending on the brand and market – and supplier sales conversations require explaining why the demand quality and volume that Expedia delivers justifies the commission, including the incremental nature of OTA bookings for travelers who would not have found the property through direct channels), and the B2B platform partner sales complexity (Expedia Partner Solutions sells to airlines, banks, and travel companies whose product teams need to understand integration architecture, API reliability, inventory coverage, and revenue-sharing structures before they can commit to embedding EPS technology in their products – a sales process that requires technical credibility alongside commercial negotiation capability).

The vacation rental market adds competitive complexity: Vrbo competes with Airbnb for both property listings and traveler bookings, and Vrbo's property owner acquisition sales must address owner concerns about platform concentration and differentiate Vrbo's whole-home focus and traveler demographic from Airbnb's broader shared accommodation model.

What gets scored in every session

Specific, sentence-level feedback.

Dimension What it measures How to answer
OTA commission value demonstration Do you understand how to make the case for Expedia's commission to a hotel that is actively promoting direct booking and questioning whether OTA distribution is worth the cost – articulating the incremental demand, traveler reach, and merchandising capabilities that Expedia provides beyond what the hotel can achieve through its own channels? We flag sales answers that treat OTA commission justification as a straightforward value proposition without engaging with the direct booking counter-argument. Incremental demand argument, direct booking channel comparison, OTA vs direct conversion economics
Supplier rate and inventory strategy Can you articulate how to advise a hotel supplier on rate and inventory strategy for Expedia platforms – how availability, pricing relative to other channels, and promotional participation affect the property's ranking and booking performance on Expedia's platforms? We score whether your supplier strategy advice reflects platform algorithm understanding. Rate competitiveness impact on ranking, last-room availability negotiation, promotional program participation
B2B partner solutions selling Do you understand how to sell Expedia Partner Solutions to an airline or bank that is evaluating embedding travel booking in its own product – what technical capabilities EPS provides, what the revenue-sharing economics look like, and how to navigate the procurement and technical integration evaluation process? We detect sales answers that describe EPS without being able to explain the partner value proposition specifically. EPS technical capability explanation, revenue-sharing model clarity, integration evaluation support
Vacation rental owner acquisition Can you make the case for listing on Vrbo to a vacation rental owner who is already listing on Airbnb and is skeptical about whether adding a second platform adds incremental bookings or just cannabilizes existing revenue? We flag sales answers that treat Vrbo and Airbnb as interchangeable platforms without articulating Vrbo's differentiated traveler demand. Vrbo incremental demand argument, whole-home traveler demographic differentiation, listing optimization advice

How a session works

Step 1: Choose an Expedia sales scenario – hotel supplier acquisition and commission value demonstration, supplier rate and inventory strategy optimization, Expedia Partner Solutions B2B technology partnership sales, or Vrbo vacation rental owner and property manager acquisition.

Step 2: The AI interviewer asks realistic Expedia-style questions: how you would respond to a mid-scale hotel chain's procurement team that has just informed you that they are planning to reduce their Expedia commission tier from 20 percent to 12 percent or they will restrict the inventory available to Expedia's platforms, how you would advise a boutique resort that is underperforming relative to comparable properties in Expedia's ranking on how to improve its merchandising, pricing, and content to improve booking conversion, or how you would explain Expedia Partner Solutions' inventory coverage and API reliability to a regional airline's product team that is evaluating embedding a hotel booking module in their loyalty app.

Step 3: You respond as you would in the actual interview. The system scores your answer on OTA commission value demonstration, supplier rate and inventory strategy, B2B partner solutions selling, and vacation rental owner acquisition.

Step 4: You get sentence-level feedback on what demonstrated genuine OTA platform sales expertise and what needs stronger commission value justification or supplier rate strategy specificity.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does Expedia justify its commission rate to hotel suppliers?
Expedia's value proposition to hotel suppliers rests on the incremental demand argument: OTA bookings from travelers who searched on Expedia and found the hotel through the platform represent demand the hotel would not have captured through its own direct channels or visibility. Hotels with strong brand recognition and loyal frequent guests may find that OTA bookings are largely cannibalistic – people who would have booked direct now booking through Expedia and paying a commission. Hotels with lower brand awareness or in markets where Expedia attracts significant international and leisure travel will find a higher share of OTA bookings genuinely incremental. Expedia account managers who can help hotels analyze their booking channel mix and identify the incremental share of their OTA demand are more credible partners than those who assert incremental value without data.

What is Expedia Partner Solutions and who is the buyer?
Expedia Partner Solutions is Expedia Group's B2B technology platform that provides white-label travel booking capabilities – hotel inventory, rates, content, and booking management – to non-Expedia travel companies. EPS customers include airlines that want to offer hotel booking in their loyalty programs, banks and credit card companies that want to offer travel booking as a cardholder benefit, and corporate travel management companies that want access to Expedia's leisure hotel inventory. The EPS value proposition includes: access to Expedia's global hotel inventory (negotiated rates from hundreds of thousands of properties), the technology infrastructure to search, book, and manage hotel reservations, and the customer service infrastructure to handle booking issues. EPS sells on a revenue-sharing model where EPS customers earn a margin on hotel bookings processed through the EPS platform.

How does Vrbo differentiate from Airbnb in the vacation rental market?
Vrbo (Vacation Rentals by Owner) focuses on whole-home vacation rental properties – standalone houses, cabins, and condos rented entirely to one group rather than shared accommodations where the host may be on-site. This positions Vrbo as the platform for family and group travel where privacy and space are the primary preference. Airbnb's platform encompasses both whole-home rentals and shared accommodations – a room in a host's occupied home or a shared house – giving it broader supply but a more diverse positioning. In sales to property owners, Vrbo's account managers differentiate on the quality of the whole-home traveler demographic (families on vacation, celebrating milestones, with higher average booking values than Airbnb's backpacker and short-break segments) and on Vrbo's historical strength with the vacation property owner community.

How does the One Key loyalty program affect Expedia's supplier sales?
Expedia Group's One Key loyalty program, launched in 2023, unifies rewards across Expedia.com, Hotels.com, and Vrbo – travelers earn and redeem rewards across all three platforms with a single account. For hotel suppliers, One Key creates a more valuable relationship with Expedia because customers who earn rewards on Expedia are more likely to return to Expedia for future bookings rather than price-comparing across multiple OTAs. Suppliers who participate in One Key promotional offers and redemption discounts get enhanced visibility in search results and access to the platform's most loyal and high-frequency travelers. Expedia account managers present One Key participation as a way for hotels to reduce their effective cost of OTA distribution by capturing repeat bookings at lower marginal acquisition cost.

What does Expedia's media solutions platform offer to advertisers?
Expedia Media Solutions sells advertising inventory to travel-related companies – airlines, hotels, car rental companies, cruise lines, tourism boards – who want to reach travelers in a high-intent planning context. Travelers on Expedia's platforms are actively researching and booking trips, making them more valuable as an advertising audience than general audience digital media buys where travel intent is unknown. Advertising products include sponsored hotel listings that appear above organic search results, display advertising on Expedia search results and property detail pages, and custom content programs for destination marketing organizations. Expedia's advertising data advantage is the ability to measure whether advertising exposure influences booking behavior on the platform, allowing advertisers to measure travel advertising ROI more directly than through brand lift studies alone.

Also practice

One full session free. No account required. Real, specific feedback.