Articles tagged “metasearch”

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

From the front lines of online and mobile travel, Orbitz Worldwide still thinks it can be a winner as an insurgent, although there hasn't been any major evidence of a surge.

Hipmunk seems content to keep its nose to the grindstone and invest in its platforms. How long it can be viable as a smaller player in an increasingly croweded marketplace remains to be seen.

Unless Google is playing possum and lulling competitors into submission, prognostications about the potential impact of Google Flight Search could turn out to be one of the greatest miscalculations in online travel history.

TripAdvisor is finding out that transitioning to hotel metasearch is very heavy lifting, and quite a gamble.

Most of the traveler leads that TripAdvisor passes along to online travel agencies and hotels don't come from its hotel metasearch search results pages. They come from the property pages where travelers read reviews and gawk at the photos. This is a huge differentiator from the competition and will afford TripAdvisor a big advantage in the long term.

Some travel companies took compare tools like Booking Buddy's and pre-checked several windows, driving up their own click revenue and exasperating consumers who unknowingly found their computer screens flush with pop-under windows when they started to search. CPC rates charged to advertisers became subject to a downward spiral, and although the model is still widely used, metasearch stole some of its thunder.

Skyscanner is the underdog few have heard of stateside. To compete with likes of Kayak and others, it needs a lot more muscle and visibility than it currently has, and maybe it is better off focusing on its stronghold in Europe.

There's been so much talk about hotel rate parity, and the sameness when searching for a hotel room. TripAdvisor's invitation to often-overlooked independent hotels and B&Bs may provide some real choice.

Funded, lean and focused, Hipmunk can take its sweet, little time honing its product to get ready for a larger profile. Whether it ever emerges from beautiful product to major player is a very open question. There is plenty of money to be made even as a relatively small company, but Hipmunk's ambitions are huge.