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Expedia, Inc. Announces CEO Succession


/FROM PR NEWSWIRE SAN FRANCISCO 415-543-7800/
TO BUSINESS, TECHNOLOGY AND TRAVEL EDITORS:

Expedia, Inc. Announces CEO Succession

Erik Blachford, president of Expedia North America, to succeed founder Richard
Barton as president and CEO of Expedia, Inc.

BELLEVUE, Wash., Feb. 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --
Expedia, Inc. (Nasdaq: EXPE) today announced that founder Richard Barton is
resigning as president and chief executive officer effective March 31, 2003.
Erik Blachford, currently president of Expedia North America, will succeed Mr.
Barton as president and CEO and will join the Expedia(R) board of directors.
This carefully planned transition will allow for Mr. Barton's continued
involvement with the company as director of USA Interactive (Nasdaq: USAI), an
appointment that has been approved by USA's directors.
"With our three kids approaching school age, and the company in such a
rock-solid position, I feel it is a good time to pursue my long-standing dream
to live in Europe for a year," said Barton. "Erik Blachford, having helped
build the company from the ground up, is ready to lead Expedia into the
future. I leave a strong company in good hands."
Additionally, Barry Diller, chairman of Expedia, Inc. and chairman and CEO
of Expedia's majority owner, USA Interactive, said: "While everyone associated
with Expedia, both at the board and senior executive level, would wish
otherwise, and would make great attempts to convince Rich to continue in his
role, it's simply impossible when fundamental life decisions are involved.
As much as I wanted to argue, I quickly realized the decision had been
irrevocably made and deserves to be respected -- he's accomplished so much in
building this company, in leading it from inception, defining its culture, and
in developing and nurturing a truly fine team to maturity, that the idea of a
long pause at a young age for a career with so much future deserves the
support of everyone.
"Erik Blachford is the natural choice to succeed Rich," Mr. Diller
continued. "He's essentially been running 80% of Expedia's operations in his
role as president North America at Expedia, responsible for sales, marketing,
product development and strategic planning for Expedia's U.S. and Canadian
operations. Together with a remarkably strong group of key executives, both
Rich and I know this will be a seamless and successful transition. No one
likes change when things are going well, but the two good parts of this are
Rich's agreeing to join the Board of USA (I can't think of anyone who will
bring more to our deliberations in all our areas of interactivity than Rich),
and being able to naturally promote someone of Erik Blachford's character and
ability."
Mr. Blachford joined the Expedia team at Microsoft in 1995 and led the
creation of the Expedia brand as senior vice president, marketing. In the
first quarter of 2002, he was named president of Expedia North America,
overseeing Expedia.com and Expedia.ca as both ascended to No. 1 positions, and
guiding the emergence of the company's private-label business, WWTE.
"Expedia has only just begun to deliver on the promise of online travel,"
said Mr. Blachford. "The Expedia team has the talent and the passion to build
the services that will have travelers everywhere turning to the Internet for
their travel planning. I could not be more excited about the prospects of our
company over the next few years."
In a separate release today, Expedia announced fourth quarter earnings of
$0.33 a diluted share, compared with $0.08 a diluted share in the year-ago
period, on revenue of $164 million. Gross bookings nearly doubled year-over-
year to $1.38 billion. Further, the company said that the pace of Expedia's
travel sales thus far in January have been encouraging.

About Expedia, Inc.
Expedia, Inc. is the world's leading online travel service and the eighth
largest travel agency in the U.S. Expedia's award-winning Expert Searching
and Pricing (ESP) technology delivers the most comprehensive flight options
available online. ESP also allows customers to dynamically build complete
trips that combine flights, Expedia Special Rate hotels and other lodging,
ground transportation, and destination activities. Expedia operates Classic
Custom Vacations, a leading wholesaler of premiere vacation packages to
destinations such as Hawaii, Mexico, Europe and the Caribbean; and
Metropolitan Travel, a corporate travel agency. Travelscape, Inc., wholly
owned by Expedia, also operates as WWTE, a private-label online travel
business that supplies car and hotel inventory to third parties. Expedia is a
majority-owned subsidiary of USA Interactive.

This press release contains forward-looking statements relating to future
events or future financial performance that involve risks and uncertainties.
Such statements can be identified by terminology such as "may," "will,"
"should," "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "estimates,"
"predicts," "potential" or "continue" or the negative of such terms or
comparable terms. These statements are only predictions and actual results
could differ materially from those anticipated in these statements based upon
a number of factors including final adjustments made in closing the quarter
and those identified in the company's filings with the SEC.
Expedia, Expedia.com and the Expedia logo are either registered trademarks or
trademarks of Expedia, Inc. in the U.S., Canada and/or other countries. The
names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be trademarks of
their respective owners.

SOURCE Expedia, Inc.

/CONTACT: investors, Marj Charlier, Director of Investor Relations ofExpedia,
[phone] or Expedia Investor Relations team, [phone],or, press,
Darcy Bretz, of Edelman Public Relations, [phone]
[e-mail], for Expedia; or http://expedia.com/daily/press/

/Web site: http://www.expedia.com /

Feb-05-2003 21:07 GMT
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