Expedia announced Tuesday that it has officially acquired HomeAway and all of its brands.
The announcement comes more than one month after Expedia announced it had reached an agreement to acquire the leading vacation rental marketplace in exchange for $3.9 billion in cash and common stock.
The deal was previously expected to close in the first quarter of 2016.
"We are thrilled to enter the fast-growing, $100 billion alternative accommodations space with HomeAway on our side," said Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi in a statement.
"We couldn't be more excited about the opportunity to create even more robust experiences for our shared global traveler audience and for HomeAway's homeowners and property managers all around the world," Khosrowshahi added. "We have a ton of hard work ahead of us, but the HomeAway team, in line with Expedia's track record in building first class global transactional platforms, can get us there together faster and more effectively."
In his own statement, HomeAway CEO Brian Sharples said the company "has a very bright future as part of the Expedia family."
"We are eager to benefit from Expedia's distribution and to learn from their expertise in technology and online travel, which will be critical to our success as we move to a marketplace where all of our properties are fully bookable online," he added. "This acquisition is the perfect next step on the HomeAway journey and it sets us on a terrific path forward for travelers and our homeowners and property managers alike."
With the acquisition complete, Expedia is ready to compete against short-term vacation rental service Airbnb. What's more, the acquisition signals a key advantage the leading online booking service now has over its direct competitors, including the Priceline Group and Booking.com.
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