Online travel company Priceline Group announced today that it’s changing its name to Booking Holdings. The name change is fitting, as Priceline’s 2005 acquisition of Booking.com helped turn the company around — one of the few internet comebacks that actually worked.
Priceline had gone public at the height of the dot-com bubble, and subsequently saw its stock tumble. Booking.com, which had more global name recognition than Priceline.com, helped Priceline increase its more profitable international hotel booking business.
Today’s stock price of above $1,900 is nearly 30,000 percent more than what it was at its lowest point in October 2002.
Other businesses under the new Booking Holdings umbrella include Kayak.com, Rentalcars.com and OpenTable. Its stock will begin trading under the new Nasdaq ticker symbol BKNG next week.
