Expedia Group's Annual Inclusion & Diversity Report Reveals Steady Strides in Its Inclusive Journey

SEATTLE, May 11, 2022 /3BL Media/ – Expedia Group today released its second annual Inclusion & Diversity (I&D) Report. Detailing progress achieved on key initiatives in 2021 and establishing standards for 2022, the report outlines the global company’s continued commitment to build and maintain an open, equitable workplace and experience with transparency for employees, partners, and travelers.

As a global travel platform with more than 13,500 employees worldwide, 200+ travel sites in over 70 countries, Expedia Group uses travel to drive better understanding between people from different cultures and identities. The in-depth report presents key focus areas and findings in four distinct categories: Employees, Travelers, Partners, and Communities. Each one is representative of Expedia Group’s vast community and receives its own comprehensive overview of anticipated goals and accomplishments.

As detailed in the report, key highlights from 2021 include:

Employees:

• Progress on I&D hiring goals, including targeting a binary gender goal of 50/50 balance across all levels by the end of 2025 and for 25% of external US hires to come from racially and ethnically under-represented identities (URI) by the end of 2021
• Ending 2021, women represented 47% of the workforce globally and 19% of hires were URI identities. To improve on this, Expedia Group has created capacity within its Global Talent Acquisition team to strategically build out a sourcing function to increase the network of available talent and proactively seek out new talent.
• Introduced its eighth Inclusion Business Group (IBG) - Indigenous Diversity, Expedians and Allies (IDEA) – all IBGs champion inclusion and allyship across the company.
• Launched an internal podcast focused on “Decoding Bias for Expedia Group employees, featuring conversations with external experts and employees.
• Creating a podcast made the training more accessible to employees and generated a collective 1.6 million hours of listening time.

Travelers:

• Prioritizing initiatives for travelers with accessibility needs, including accessible filter improvements on Expedia.com, resulting in an 80 percent increase in engagement.
• Launched new reporting capabilities on Vrbo to empower travelers to report property listings that feature inaccurate, offensive, or fraudulent content. This feature will be available on Expedia.com later this year.

Partners:

• Expedia Group Media Solutions, which connects partners with travelers across Expedia Group’s brands, developed the Inclusion & Diversity in Travel Advertising guidelines. The guide is designed to support partners on their journey to represent diversity and inclusion in travel marketing. This resource provides education and guidance on travel advertising imagery, content and language, and accessibility.

Communities:

• Removing problematic terms from Vrbo by developing internal I&D guides and resources for improved traveler communication and working with host partners to address appropriative, offensive and insensitive content and messaging on the site.
• Introducing a new search filter on Orbitz, Expedia and Hotels.com to improve access to lodging partners that have signed an Inclusivity Pledge against discrimination based on gender and sexual identity. More than 40,000 hotels have opted-in to date.

“It is more important than ever that we embrace inclusive thinking to innovate our decision-making, workforce, and business,” said Michael Davis Velasco, Chief Inclusion & Diversity Officer, Expedia Group. “At Expedia Group, we’re on a continuous journey to create a workplace that is more representative of the communities where we live, work and aspire to visit. As a global travel platform, we believe this focused commitment enables us to create experiences that meet and exceed the needs of our employees, travelers and partners. Our Inclusion & Diversity Report outlines the many significant accomplishments made possible by our teams this past year and sets renewed standards to hold us accountable for continued improvement.”

The full list of initiatives and progress can be found in the 2021 Expedia Group Inclusion and Diversity report, available to download here.

About Expedia Group
Expedia Group, Inc. companies power travel for everyone, everywhere through our global platform. Driven by the core belief that travel is a force for good, we help people experience the world in new ways and build lasting connections. We provide industry-leading technology solutions to fuel partner growth and success, while facilitating memorable experiences for travelers. Our organization is made up of four pillars: Expedia Services, focused on the group’s platform and technical strategy; Expedia Marketplace, centered on product and technology offerings across the organization; Expedia Brands, housing all our consumer brands; and Expedia for Business, consisting of business-to-business solutions and relationships throughout the travel ecosystem. The Expedia Group family of brands includes: Expedia®, Hotels.com®, Expedia® Partner Solutions, Vrbo®, trivago®, Orbitz®, Travelocity®, Hotwire®, Wotif®, ebookers®, CheapTickets®, Expedia Group™ Media Solutions, CarRentals.com™, and Expedia Cruises™.