Articles tagged “metasearch”

Room Key is a bit like the train in the children's story, "The Little Engine That Could," which kept saying "I think I can, I think I can." While Room Key may never become the next Kayak, it may help hotel chains gain more direct bookings.

This relatively small deal tells a larger story about the structural reasons why hotels have been behind the curve in digital marketing relative to retail and other sectors.

Google wants consumers to buy more travel on it. That may prompt industry players to closely patrol the gray line between the search giant referring more customers to them and Google becoming customers' first choice for booking trips.

What do a debate over landing pages, the acquisition of Momondo, a shift into hotel software services, and regulators forcing changes in online travel agency contracts have in common? Each of those seemingly unrelated things may have pushed Priceline to toggle back its spending on Trivago.

Google made its claim to fame partly on the simplicity of its user interface. Its new interface for flight search is a return to its elegant design roots.

Two deals in the space of a week show how serious Skyscanner is about improving the content it offers to customers. The days of it being a pure price-comparison site are definitely over.

Lastminute.com Group’s traditional business of flight sales isn’t as profitable as it once was so growing metasearch makes sense. And while this deal isn’t a gamechanger it does represent an expansion into accommodation.

Expedia’s fast-growing hotel search site Trivago may see its pace of growth stall as both Expedia and rival The Priceline Group have pulled back on spending per acquired customer. This is extraordinary given the fact that Trivago was one of Expedia's growth engines and there was seemingly no end in sight.

TripAdvisor's struggles clearly have to do with strategy, execution and competitive pressures, and can't be neatly laid solely at Medros' doorstep. That would be very unfair.

While some may disagree, we believe that Google is not becoming an online travel agency. It certainly could do so, but its travel business is already massive and highly profitable. We estimate it will generate around $14 billion in revenue in 2017, and will grow at over 20 percent per year for the foreseeable future.