Google Travel - Crash Landing?

by comparisonengines, on November 8th, 2005

Google Travel Search

Reuters has a story about Google entering the travel search market (actually, Mobissimo noticed this about 10 days ago and SearchEngineWatch posted a piece on October 25th, but the the system seemed to be in limited release). As the Reuters article states, type in Seattle to Chicago and you get a flight window with options to search Expedia, Hotwire, Orbitz, and Priceline. Clicking on the link above the date fields automatically returns Expedia results.

While I applaud Google for adding more vertical search to their result pages - thus providing potentially more relevant results to the user - I’m surprised that searching OTAs (Online Travel Agents) like Expedia is Google’s answer. Obviously these results will be refined over time, and I’m sure we’ll see suppliers added to the mix, but right now, they would have provided a better service to their users by defaulting to the travel search engines (meta search engines like SideStep, Kayak, and Mobissimo) while they work out their own system. On a search for Burbank to New York, Expedia returns $373 as the best price while Kayak (with an Adwords ad on the page) returns flights around $270 with service out of a nearby airport (Ontario or LAX):

This is the default result:
Google Travel default Expedia Search

Here’s my $100 savings through clicking on the Kayak Adwords ad:
Kayak Travel Search

Google is about providing users with information. OTAs like Expedia are closed systems which are contrary to this mission. Expedia doesn’t search independent providers like JetBlue and therefore doesn’t provide as much information as a travel search engine like Kayak, SideStep, or Mobissimo.

A couple weeks ago, I asked Steve Hafner, CEO of Kayak, what it would take for the travel search engines to get to the next level and Steve answered “when Google, Yahoo! or AOL launches with a meta-search engine, Expedia better watch out.” Unfortunately, I don’t think this is what Steve had in mind. Searching Expedia and Orbitz is taking a step back in travel search, not a step forward.

Tags: Comparison Engines


Chris Zaharias said

I don’t know about other travellers, but for me airport choice is at least as important as price if not more so. I guess I should try the comparison travel sites, but *they* should be raising more capital to market themselves more broadly. Remember, the reason we all know about Expedia, Hotwire, Orbitz and Travelocity is they were huge advertisers, often spending $5-$10M/month on advertising & most of that online.

November 9th, 2005 at 9:43 am |

Haz said

OTA?

November 9th, 2005 at 10:20 am |

Brian Smith said

OTAs are online travel agents. OTAs like Expedia and Travelocity act like real world travel agents booking your flight - and they actually take inventory (seats, rooms, etc.). Travel search engines/travel meta search engines/travel comparison engines send you directly to a supplier or to an OTA to book. Companies like JetBlue and InterContinental Hotels work with travel search engines because they get to develop a direct relationship with the traveler.

November 9th, 2005 at 11:01 am |

Steve Hafner said

This is a very small, incremental step for Google. What they’re trying to measure is what percent of consumers will engage with widget that asks for dates…and what impact that has on overall page CTR and monetization. For the moment, the referral links are free (e.g. to Expedia). But that will change.

This Google test is not metasearch. It’s simply a better version of BookingBuddy, Lowfares.com, Bookingwiz etc.

True metasearch is bringing back realtime flight and fare information from multiple sites in one integrated display. When Google gets around to that, OTAs and other metasearch companies will have something more tangible to worry about!

November 10th, 2005 at 7:17 am |

Stuart MacDonald said

Darn right, Steve. Best case in that event? All you kids - plus suppliers and OTAs - are paying *even more* for one box placement. Smells like 99.9% of GP bidding territory, to me. Not pretty.

Not to mention the possibility of a full-on Troogle. I’d *love* to see what GOOG could do in terms of straight-up travel search once they set their minds to it (eh, Jane?). Now that I’m out, of course. Hoo haa :-)
– Stuart

February 18th, 2006 at 7:54 pm |

Google Travel la risposta al cerca-tariffe di Yahoo? said

[...] ogle ha in serbo qualcosa di nuovo e se veramente ha intenzione (come notava l’anno scorso Comparison Engines) di affidare uno dei suoi servizi di ricerca ad un portale “vecchia maniera”. [...]

April 18th, 2006 at 7:01 am |

KK said

Google Travel will not only be an Aggregator but is likely that it will also provide aggregrated facilities like Google Videos, Google Earth and of course Google Search to give a new dimension to the existing Online Travel Business. The challenge now with OTAs and other search engines like Kayak is that how will they maintain there competitive advantage over Google? This can become a nightmare for many !

December 23rd, 2006 at 11:12 pm |