CEO Blachford To Depart IAC Travel

Erik Blachford will step down as president and CEO of IAC Travel, parent of Expedia Corporate Travel, the company today announced. Blachford, who was one of Expedia's founders, last year spearheaded the consolidation of Expedia, Hotels.com, Hotwire, Interval International, Classic Custom Vacations and ECT under the newly created IAC Travel.

"After nine years playing key roles in building up the company, Erik Blachford told me some weeks ago that he's desirous of a new challenge," said Barry Diller, chairman and CEO of IAC Travel parent company InterActivCorp, in a statement. "He feels it's time to move to the kind of role he'd prefer, a direct operating opportunity, as compared to the more diverse management and oversight role IACT requires."

A company spokesperson said Blachford will remain with IAC Travel until at least year-end, and that no specific date has been set for his departure.

Dara Khosrowshahi, CFO of IAC, will succeed Blachford. "This will be a seamless and easy process, and we will have a successor as CFO in place before the transition is final," Diller said.

While Blachford was unavailable for comment, an IAC spokesperson said the move is not expected to have any impact on Expedia Corporate Travel.

"I wouldn't read too much into it," said Norm Rose, president of Travel Tech Consulting Inc. "As long as Matt Hulett is still there, he's the driving force behind the corporate effort."

Hulett, president of Expedia Corporate Travel, said the move likely will not impact ECT. "I meet with Dara quite regularly. Oddly enough, he's both the CFO and one of my internal customers. He really enjoys the corporate travel business and really understands what we're about on both ends. From my perspective, it's not much of a change at all."

Hulett said that Blachford may stay on at IAC in a consulting role, but that his "real passion is taking a real operating role in driving a business." Still, Hulett said, "I think his first order of business is to compete in the Hawaiian Iron Man competition. He's a pretty serious triathlete."

This IAC announcement followed yesterday's news that Omni Hotels will join the Expedia Corporate Rate hotel program. Described by Hulett as an "augmented, business-friendly merchant hotel program," the Expedia Corporate Rate hotel program aims to provide customers with access to "corporate-friendly room rates and additional business travel amenities."