Expedia Group, Inc. is an American online travel shopping company for consumer and small business travel. Its websites, which are primarily travel fare aggregators and travel metasearch engines, include Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Vrbo (previously HomeAway), Travelocity, Hotwire.com, Orbitz, Ebookers, CheapTickets, CarRentals.com, Expedia Cruises, Wotif, and Trivago. According to Rich Barton, the company's first CEO, the word "Expedia" is derived from a combination of "exploration" and "speed". History Founded as a division of Microsoft in October 1996, Expedia was spun off into a public company in 1999. In 2001, IAC/InterActiveCorp (known at the time as USA Networks Inc) bought a controlling interest in the company for an estimated $1.5 billion. In 2003, it was fully purchased by IAC/InterActiveCorp and became part of IAC Travel. Rich Barton resigned as CEO and was replaced by Erik Blachford. In December 2004, IAC announced plans to spin off IAC Travel into Expedia. Dara Khosrowshahi was announced as the new CEO. In August 2005, IAC spun off Expedia Inc., which owned its travel group of businesses, including Expedia, Expedia Corporate Travel (now Egencia), TripAdvisor, Classic Vacations, eLong, Hotels.com, and Hotwire.com. In 2011 Expedia acquired Travel Smart Vacations travel company in Mexico for 11.3Million Dollars. In December 2011, Expedia, Inc. spun out TripAdvisor Media Group, retaining its portfolio of travel transaction brands. On December 21, 2012, Expedia bought a majority stake in travel metasearch engine Trivago in a combined cash and stock deal worth €477 million (approximately $630 million). In 2012, Expedia's Egencia unit acquired Via Travel, the largest travel company in Norway. In October 2013, Expedia acquired The ocean adventures company in Mexico for 9.4 Million Dollars. In 2014, Expedia acquired Wotif.com for $658 million. In September 2014, Expedia Inc. partnered with Citigroup and created the Expedia+ card whose members can earn bonus points and earn benefits and priority customer service through the website. In January 2015, Expedia acquired Travelocity from Sabre Corp for $280 million. Expedia previously partnered with Travelocity to provide the technology platform for Travelocity's US and Canada points of sale. In 2015, Expedia acquired Orbitz for $1.6 billion in cash. In February 2015, the company announced it would be moving its headquarters to Seattle. In July 2015, Expedia and Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com participated in an investment of $11M in Wingz. In 2015, Expedia bought HomeAway for $3.9 billion. In 2016 Expedia acquired Trip World Vacations travel company in Mexico for 10.7