With new flight metasearch engines from TripAdvisor and Travelzoo, and some great discussions about travel metasearch on UpTake and Dennis Schaal’s blog, there’s a consensus emerging that the future of travel metasearch is providing a user experience that simplifies a la carte pricing (baggage fees, drink fees, etc). These same people and many of my industry friends are convinced that flight metasearch’s revenue per visit is set to decline dramatically, as OTAs are not charging booking fees and thus cannot pass this revenue upstream in the form of lucrative CPC payments.
I thought a lot about flight metasearch monetization strategies when I was at SideStep, especially how to make money if OTAs were no longer the cash cow. I surmised that metasearch revenue must ultimately come from the entity at the end of the food chain – the airlines themselves. But the challenge is that major airlines feel entitled to the bookings originating from metasearch engines (as evidenced by the AA/Kayak dispute last year). Worse, airlines are not profitable, so getting them to write checks is no small feat.
My proposed solution is for flight metasearch engines to deliver airlines incremental revenue, not just fill seats. Read the rest of this entry »
Welcome to our first Spring issue! As we continue to show you the best deals, you now can book a deal directly from our newsletter, if so inspired. Want to see more deals in a certain city or hotel class? Reply and let us know what you’re hunting for.
In summary, the challenge for Kayak will be building up enough originally-posted reviews to be perceived as a credible resource. Given the network effect and brand that TripAdvisor enjoys, this will be exceedingly difficult. Here’s why:
There’s been a lot of news recently about the competition between Kayak and TripAdvisor. TripAdvisor recently launched an air metasearch product, directly threatening Kayak’s core business. In classic Steve Hafner style (and borrowing from The Art of War), Kayak is responding with a counterattack by playing up the long-in-progress relaunch of their hotel review site TravelPost, and taking more than a few pot-shots at TripAdvisor in the process.
For context and background, before I started the hotel deals and packages site DealBase.com, I founded and was CEO of TravelPost.com. I was fortunate to work with a great group of people (many of whom are joining me on DealBase.com). We were successful with TravelPost.com, reaching over 700k unique visitors, becoming profitable and building the second-largest hotel reviews site. I like to call TravelPost.com the “RC Cola of hotel reviews sites” – profitable with a loyal fan base, but small compared to the total market which is dominated by TripAdvisor (who, to continue the metaphor, is both Coke and Pepsi.) Read the rest of this entry »
Signs of spring are already starting to appear: coming up is St. Patrick’s Day, and before you know it, spring and summer vacation. Plan ahead to get the best values before everyone else claims them! Any additional cities or types of packages you’d like to see? Reply and let us know.
At DealBase.com, we’re working hard to help you find the best hotel deal. Sometimes, we come across a great service a bit outside of our core mission, so we’ll tell you about it on our blog.
Today’s service is called Wize that automates product recommendations by aggregating reviews and mapping them against topical categories. This approach works well for many, many different topics and especially for finding the best travel gear. Read the rest of this entry »
Most of us need to “spring forward” this weekend as Daylight Savings Time begins. That’s a perfect reason to start thinking about your Spring travel plans!
Keep that feedback coming. Hit reply, and send us those requests and suggestions.
Today, social media heavyweight Mashable posted a nice summary of us. They also tweeted us, which means that a lot of their followers got to check out our site. Kinda neat to see the response!
I always look forward to Warren Buffet’s letter to shareholders in the Berkshire Hathaway annual report, as he’s an amazing, insightful and entertaining writer. I particularly like to read his letter in turbulent times, and find his reassuring words, wisdom and perspective are the perfect remedy for the stress of checking Google Finance.
In fact, if more people had read his letter over the weekend, the market may have not continued its nose-dive today. He expressed great optimism on the future for the United States economy in the coming years. Not only is Mr. Buffet smart, he also knows that consumers are motivated now more than ever to find great deals and products that save them money. His insurance company GEICO recorded record months in January and February of this year, and the reason given is:
Americans are focused on saving money as never before, and they are flocking to GEICO.
At DealBase.com, we couldn’t agree more about the value of helping people save money, and now is a great time to use your GEICO savings and escape to Las Vegas for a few days. How about $25/night in Vegas on the strip at CircusCircus, or $89/night at the new high-end Trump Casino, which includes a $50 credit. Don’t let the stock market scare you off – now’s a great time to find some insane travel bargains, and DealBase.com is your guide to finding the best values.
the future of travel metasearch is providing a user experience that simplifies a la carte pricing (baggage fees, drink fees, etc). These same people and many of my industry friends are convinced that flight metasearch’s revenue per visit is set to decline dramatically, as OTAs are not charging booking fees and thus cannot pass this revenue upstream in the form of lucrative CPC payments.
