Articles tagged “metasearch”

The growth rate of people using TripAdvisor's hotel metasearch product, Hotel Shopper, has been decelerating. Perhaps TripAdvisor's next TV ad campaign will provide more of a direct tie-in to Hotel Shopper rather than its current generic bent, "Visit TripAdvisor New York" etc.

A metasearch-like advertisement on an online travel agency site isn't going to get anywhere near the the sort of clout that sites such as TripAdvisor, Google and Kayak can wield, but it enables OTA sites to get into metasearch in a modest way to appease consumers' inclination to comparison-shop without taking a lot of the risk.

Trivago's new shared-room search reflects the born-again trendiness of hostels -- which are no longer called youth hostels -- and apartment shares. Booking.com and Kayak already have it, and others will add it.

The Momondo Group is in the early stages of pursuing a dual brand metasearch strategy with its Cheapflights and Momondo brands. Are they different enough from one another, and will they stand out sufficiently from their rivals to make a real go of it? Other players will be watching to see if any of this makes sense.

Qunar is a technology company with a big vision and an enormous opportunity as the Chinese traveler busts out into the world. He won't say it outright, but it's clear that CEO CC Zhuang likes where he sits, and wouldn't want to stop the momentum with the complications that a merger with Ctrip would bring.

Metasearch is the hottest thing in travel. Understand why, as well as what’s coming next.

Whether Bing Travel/Farecast could have made it and competed just based on the flight prediction differentiator is open to debate, but Microsoft Bing never even gave it a try.

Competing against the likes of Priceline's Kayak, Expedia's Trivago and even Google will be very tough going for Room 77. Is Room 77 giving up on the challenge or playing possum while it hones its mobile skills?

Malte Siewert of Trivago has a mantra that's a characteristic of many successful companies: Test things out, yes, but make quick decisions and get things done. He's happy about the Expedia acquisition, but Trivago is apparently creating its own destiny.

Steve Hafner acknowledges that flight ticket purchasing on Kayak still "sucks." He candidly admits that Kayak is taking some design inspiration from the Airbnb website, which he says balances exploration and transactions without overwhelming the user.