Articles tagged “metasearch”

Who said investors no longer want to bet on consumer-facing travel startups that compete with Google? HomeToGo is in talks to go public via a blank-check company owned by Lakestar. It'll be an approximately $1.2 billion deal, sources tell Skift.

The increased importance of YouTube doesn't bode well for travel advertisers seeking to reduce their reliance on sister brand Google. Pay Google for search ads or spend money on YouTube — it all ends up in the same place.

Kayak and Life House have joined forces to launch Kayak's first foray into the hospitality industry. The concept is a good one, but to be successful, the kinks in technology and customer service still need to be worked out, as Skift learned firsthand.

A new business model shall set you free. That's the underpinning of Flight Penguin, with the former Hipmunk gang vowing to overturn the coziness between online travel players and their big-spending partners. Google, Kayak and Expedia have nothing to fear; they will hardly notice.

In a switch, Google is inviting hotels and online travel resellers to drive bookings through its price-comparison search for free. Well, free for now, at least.

In this Skift Online Travel and Distribution Summit video we hear from Julie Brinkman, CEO of Beyond Pricing, about how short term rental owners, managers, and key stakeholders can optimize their short term rental distribution strategy for the rapidly changing travel environment of 2021 and beyond.

Even before the pandemic, Tripadvisor faced many challenges monetizing its user base. The travel platform is now turning to more user-friendly subscription models to change that. But will it be able to meet the evolving demands of travelers in a post-Covid world?

The ever-lively Kayak CEO Steve Hafner said he expects a marketing blitz from Airbnb's rivals. Hafner also said Kayak is developing a property management system for independent and boutique hotels. This month, the metasearch company will push its business travel tools to 60 markets.

HomeToGo goes against what is considered a viable business model for metasearch. The startup offers vacation rental property managers a somewhat different way to pay for reaching consumers. Yet Google remains a potentially dangerous rival, depending on how the search giant pursues the vacation rental sector.

While Tripadvisor has transitioned over the years away from hotel metasearch in a big way — largely because of Google's incursions — Trivago is just starting to dabble with diversification. That tilt could lead to more significant changes in the future.