Booking Holdings Inc. has entered into an agreement to acquire Dallas-based Getaroom to better support partners and customers as the travel industry continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The approximately $1.2 billion deal is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approval. Booking Holdings, one of the world’s largest providers of online travel and related services, will add Getaroom to its Priceline brand, one of the top online travel agencies for discounted rates.

Getaroom is a B2B distributor of hotel rooms that mainly serves leisure travelers in North America. With the deal, the Getaroom team will join Priceline’s strategic partnerships group—Priceline Partner Network—to form a new business unit dedicated to improving the B2B distribution model for hotel partners.

Priceline is one of six primary consumer-facing brands owned by Booking Holdings, which also includes Booking.com, Agoda, Rentalcars.com, KAYAK, and OpenTable. 

“Over the years, strategic partnerships have played an important role in our efforts to reach more customers through new channels,” Priceline CEO Brett Keller said in a statement. “By combining the technology and expertise of Getaroom and Priceline, we can further streamline distribution for our hotel partners and provide new and better solutions for the U.S. accommodations segment.”

It’s a complementary pairing, according to company leadership. The collaboration will tout a robust accommodations technology stack, increasing value for both hotel and affiliate partners.

Enabling accelerated growth

“The combination of Getaroom and the Priceline Partner Network will enable accelerated growth,” Getaroom CEO Matt Davis said in a statement. That’s primarily due to the companies’ shared vision of “delivering a more robust solution” for customers and affiliates to “simplify the complexity of global distribution for our hotel partners.”

Davis will lead the new strategic partnerships business unit at Priceline with the deal.

Founded by the duo behind Hotels.com

Getaroom was founded by Robert Diener and David Litman, the duo behind Hotel Reservations Network, which later became Hotels.com. Earlier this year, Diener and Litman also launched Travel Funders Network, a Dallas-based platform that offers a guaranteed volume of business to hotels, ultimately, to assist in finding a steady income flow throughout the year. It was especially timely amid the pandemic.

With Getaroom, the co-founders wanted to create a site that could offer travelers the “very best values” for booking hotels or other types of lodging. Today, Getaroom has more than 150 affiliates.

Simplicity and cost effectiveness

The company’s foundation is based on simplicity and cost effectiveness. In removing the complexities that accompany the global hotel distribution model, Getaroom aims to deliver a single supplier solution for partners that want to offer a hospitality experience to members, employees, or customers.

In 2018, Diener and Litman sold a majority stake in Getaroom to New York-based Court Square Capital Partners, a middle market PE firm that has $7.65 billion in assets under management. Court Square Capital executed the deal with Booking Holdings.

“Matt Davis and the leadership team at Getaroom have done a tremendous job managing the growth of the business over the years. The combination of Getaroom and Priceline Partner Network will help them create more value for their hotel and affiliate partners,” said Joseph Silvestri, Managing Partner of Court Square Capital Partners.

Upon the deal’s closing, Getaroom will remain headquartered in Dallas.

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