Fwd: PriceGrabber Adds Travel Vertical

Yup another entry in the 60 billion dollar race...

by Gavin O'Malley, Friday, Nov 11, 2005 6:00 AM EST

THE SHOPPING COMPARISON SITE PRICEGRABBER.COM this week expanded into travel comparison with PriceGrabber Travel. The vertical comparison site allows potential travelers to compare on-time flight ratings, inbound/outbound flight information, and hotel information from PriceGrabber's various partner travel sites including British Airways and InterContinental Hotels Group. The move pits PriceGrabber against the likes of Orbitz, Travelocity, and Expedia--as well as large portals like Yahoo! and Google, which are vying for a piece of the online travel market. Research firm eMarketer Thursday released a report estimating that online travel would reach $65.4 billion this year. Consistent with other vertical search models, after entering city and date information, PriceGrabber Travel displays available fares and rates for thousands of flights and hotels from many different sites. Once the results are displayed, travelers can choose from sorting options such as price, flight times, and hotel name, among others. Information on areas ranging from hotel amenities to in-flight entertainment options is available either alone or as part of PriceGrabber's side-by-side comparison. PriceGrabber's travel vertical also offers "FlightStats" ratings, which give a ranking of each flight's performance relative to other flight alternatives. The rating is statistically derived from on-time percentage, average delay, and the number of flights operated in the past 60 days to give an accurate measure of on-time performance for every flight. At the end of October, Yahoo! launched a set of