A sneak peek into Expedia’s new nautical-themed Vancouver office

Bursting at the seams, Expedia CruiseShipCenters found an office three times the size (and fun)

At Expedia’s new office in Vancouver, employees are encouraged to write on the walls. “If it’s shiny, you can write on it,” says Matthew Eichhorst, president of Expedia CruiseShipCenters. “We try to really think about the tools that everybody needs in the organization.” All employees have desks that can be adjusted from sitting to standing, there are collaboration spots throughout the open plan space, and meeting rooms are wired for videoconferencing with other locations. The north side of the office with views of Burrard Inlet and the North Shore mountains is reserved for common spaces, including the multipurpose Marketplace found in all Expedia offices: “This is an area for all the employees to come and get away from their desk and kind of hang out.”

Expedia moved into the aptly named Oceanic Plaza on West Hastings near Burrard in late 2015. The new office is 28,497 square feet over two floors—almost triple the size of the previous one just across the street. Since selling to Expedia in 2007, the cruise ship centre has expanded to about 150 travel agency franchise locations in Canada and about 50 in the U.S. (that’s expected to increase to 200 in Canada and 500 in the U.S. by 2020). Training and support for franchisees is handled by the Vancouver office, home to 143 employees across three divisions: Expedia CruiseShipCenters, Expedia Lodging and Expedia Worldwide Engineering.

The inspiration for the decor, designed by U.S.-based Gensler, is West Coast land and sea. The colour scheme changes from blue at the front of the building to green at the back. Wood relief maps on the walls opposite the elevator evoke ship’s charts. Nautical references are numerous: rope, portholes, wave motifs, cleats. “They wanted life jackets, but we said, ‘That’s not the best thing for our industry,’” says Eichhorst.