LAS VEGAS -- After taking over as Expedia Group CEO on May 13, Ariane Gorin laid out her primary goals during the company's Explore conference this week: international growth and accelerating the company's B2C business.
Explore, Expedia's annual partner conference, is in its 25th year. It was held at the Aria Resort & Casino here.
During a press conference, Gorin said international growth presents a "big opportunity" for Expedia. Regarding the B2C business, recent work on Expedia's technology and brands should come to fruition soon.
"This is a year where we'll be able to accelerate thanks to the investments that we've made," Gorin said.
Gorin succeeded Peter Kern, who is vice chairman of Expedia's board. Kern talked about recent investments on stage at Explore.
Expedia Group is focused on three main brands, Kern said: Expedia, Hotels.com and Vrbo. Those brands were all brought onto the same platform, a large-scale project that just wrapped recently. They also share a single loyalty program, One Key.
Those projects required merging and unifying millions of traveler accounts, Kern said. They also required moving from 17 different customer relationship management systems to one as well as moving from 10 different machine-learning platforms to one.
"We stand before you a reimagined Expedia Group, capable of new things, able to move at a pace we never could and innovate faster than anyone in the space," Kern said.
He voiced his support for Gorin in the CEO role, saying, "I have tremendous faith in her at the helm."
Barry Diller, Expedia's chairman and senior executive, also voiced support for Gorin.
"The strength of any company is the ability to promote from within," Diller said on stage at Explore.
While Expedia conducted a full search for a new CEO and looked outside of the company, Gorin, who headed Expedia's B2B business at the time, was still the top pick.
Diller said in his experience, bringing in an external candidate to lead a company often results in a high "casualty rate."
Of Gorin, Diller said, "I've never seen anyone act so surefootedly, thoughtfully, wisely, humanistically, in taking on huge responsibility."
On stage, Gorin pointed to a "bright future" for Expedia and the travel industry.
"It won't surprise you, but we're going to talk a lot about AI," she said. "It's everywhere. And yes, at times, it feels like the only thing anyone is talking about. But that's for good reason."
She compared AI to another revolution in the travel industry: the use of mobile phones. They changed the way travelers find recommendations, how they check in to flights and hotels, and how they receive boarding passes.
"With AI, we are on the precipice of an even bigger moment than with mobile," Gorin said.
Expedia is using AI in many ways, including to personalize travelers' experiences, Gorin said.
For instance, a page layout might look different for one traveler versus another, with images based on what Expedia knows about that traveler. A family looking for spring break travel will see related imagery. That results in less time searching, and more quickly matching that traveler with a product.
"Some people talk about personalization," Gorin said. "We're actually making it happen."
Expedia's AI efforts were enabled largely by its recent technology transformation. On stage Wednesday, Gorin said AI efforts start by ensuring all data is available and accessible. Expedia accomplished that by migrating to a single platform.
She encouraged other leaders considering or implementing AI to be "very thoughtful about the infrastructure, the data availability." Or, in simpler terms , she said, "garbage in, garbage out. You've got to make sure you've got that foundation there."
It's also important, Gorin said, to be thoughtful about where to apply AI to a business. While it could be applicable in 20 areas, focus on testing three or four.
"Try to be focused, especially initially," she said.
Gorin is Expedia's first female CEO but other women are in the C-suite: CFO Julie Whalen and chief technology officer Rathi Murthy.
Expedia is No. 2 on Travel Weekly's Power List.