Travel Meta Search plans to cater to fragmented online travel sector in Europe and Asia.
August 30, 2006
Search engine Travel Meta Search, which hopes to fill a void in the fragmented online travel sector in Europe and Asia, said in an interview it has raised €8 million ($10.2 million) and expects to launch a consumer travel site this fall.
In an exclusive interview with Red Herring, the site, whose name will be revealed in October, will search airfares, hotels, car rentals, and vacation packages from both mainstream and discount airline sites. The search engine was formed by the merger of Singapore's Fare.net and France's Coelis.
Paris-based Sofinnova Partners invested €5.5 million in Travel Meta, and Walden International, headquartered in San Francisco , invested €2.5 million. "Search tools to help Internet users get good deals are an exciting opportunity," said Sofinnova General Partner Olivier Protard.
Travel Meta's robust search technology may set it apart from competitors. Jerome Thil, the company's chief technology officer, said his company can "scrape" data from millions of web pages, whereas most travel sites can cull information from hundreds or thousands of pages.
Travel Meta is based in Singapore, and headed by Fare.net founder Pascal Bordat, a French engineer with a master's degree from Stanford University. Prior to Fare.net , Mr. Bordat had been COO of Travelprice.com. He also spent a decade at Amadeus, a global travel booking system created by Air France, Lufthansa, Iberia, and SAS. Coelis, which merged with Fare.net last month, is a Strasbourg-based company that operates French travel site Tazzoo.
Mr. Protard said Travel Meta is filling a relatively untapped niche in international travel search. Although U.S. competitor Mobissimo has begun setting up operations in the United Kingdom and India, other U.S. companies, such as Sidestep and Kayak, have not yet entered the European and Asian travel markets.
"In Europe there are a lot of low-cost carriers, and Asia is flooded with them," said Brian Smith, an independent search engine analyst in Silicon Valley. "So they [Travel Meta] are going after a very disorganized space where there are so many opportunities."
Mr. Smith cautioned, however, that online travel aggregation isn't an easy business—companies like Kayak are getting just 4 million hits a month and have spent millions on ad campaigns to lure consumers. Travel Meta, he says, likely will face similar problems in establishing its brand.
Posted by Brian Smith at August 24th, 2005
Ok, I'm almost through Hard Landing. What a great crash course on the Airline industry…deregulation, pricing, fare wars, labor costs/unions, reservation systems, and more. I highly recommend the book ( SideStep makes it required reading for all new employees).
There's so much to cover within shopping comparison engines that I've been reticent to jump into coverage of travel comparison engines (or travel search as some people like to say). I spoke with SideStep and Mobissimo early on, but did not really follow up. However, I think there are a lot of synergies between shopping search and travel search which makes coverage important. And just as with shopping comparison engines, no one is really concentrating on travel comparison engines like SideStep, Kayak, FareChase, and Mobissimo which are clearly changing the way people shop for travel services.
I sat down with Phil Carpenter, SideStep's VP of Corporate Marketing, while at Search Engine Strategies …
A little background…
"There are a number of Global Distribution Systems (GDS) or reservation systems: Sabre (used by Travelocity), Galileo/Apollo, Worldspan (used by Expedia), Amadeus (Europe), and Abacus (Asia). These systems are expensive for travel providers to sell through as there are associated booking and query fees."
"When the world wide web came along, travel suppliers were slower at developing consumer friendly websites. But in the end, they want consumers to come directly to them. That's why SideStep works well; after the first sale through SideStep, that user might go to that channel directly." [Editor's Note: Expedia, Travelocity, and Orbitz are online travel agents (OTAs). These companies take your reservation and even hold inventory – seats, rooms, etc. SideStep, Kayak, and the other travel comparison engines send you to the source to book your reservation.]
"The travel search engine model is strategically aligned with how travel providers want to go. This is especially true for hotels. However, from late 2001 through 2003, 9/11 and the SARS epidemic hit and the hoteliers got desperate. They were willing to give away the store to companies like Expedia. They just wanted to fill rooms."
"Fast forward a couple years [past 9/11 and SARS] and the hotels are not having the same issues and their own websites have become a lot better. They go back to the Expedia and say that the original deal doesn't work anymore. They want to restructure the arrangement and pay less. In some cases they 'come to blows' and in one case, a major hotel chain, InterContinental Hotels Group, walked away from Expedia. If you're looking for a Holiday Inn (an InterContinental property) on Expedia, you're not going to find it. This is in contrast to SideStep which maintains a great relationship with InterContinental because we send people directly to the InterContinental website. Hotels want the direct interaction and brand dialogue with the customer. Jet Blue is another example. They want to share the trueBlue experience directly with the traveler."
So how does SideStep work…
"Just as travel marketers are spending money through Google Adwords, we are of a similar nature. However, we are more interesting to marketers because we provide a qualified, focused audience; people are coming specifically to look for travel." [This should sound familiar to readers of my shopping comparison engine posts. Think Vertical Search!]
"Sidestep works on a CPC, CPM, and a CPA basis. Who are we to go to a multi-million dollar company and say this is how things work? In the end, it all backs out to the same number, so anyway [the travel providers] want to work, we're going to do it. Besides the search results, we also have an e-mail newsletter which delivers great returns for advertisers. Additionally, the SideStep website has a deals area and we offer a toolbar which people particular like because we're shifting bookings away from expensive channels."
On the old guard…
"The OTAs are the established, old school players. Just as people are turning to Shopping.com instead of Amazon.com , this is a new way in which people will shop for travel."
"Some of the established OTAs haven't gotten on board, but Orbitz has. Orbitz has a different mindset; they come from the travel supplier world [as the Orbitz website states: Five airlines - American, Continental, Delta, Northwest and United - came together to fulfill a mission: Develop a travel website that would serve people better. Orbitz was designed for you - to make your travel planning experience easier and more affordable.] They are feisty, aggressive, and resourceful, with a competitive spirit. They are technically savvy. They understand new tech as opposed to Travelocity which means Sabre, which means old tech."
"The DNA of [the other OTAs] is really different. We're much more akin to an Orbitz or a Google. Sidestep is a technology company. Our roots are in technology, the founders are technologists. Which is perhaps why we're successful; there's a fundamentally better way to do it [buy travel]. We've been diligently working on our technology for the last 5 years."
One reason Travelocity and Expedia say they won't work with you is because your queries will cost them millions of dollars…
"We have a dynamic directory. For a particular search, we're going to search these sources and only these sources, we're not going to search unnecessarily. If an airline serves a certain area seasonally, for example ski towns during parts of the year, we have our own technology that helps us look at just this information. We're very picky in terms of where we look and what we look for. Any of the travel suppliers which we query – Hotels.com, InterContinental, JetBlue - would back this up."
What about international expansion…
"Yes, there's a great opportunity internationally. We already search a lot of low cost airlines in Europe. We're already doing a decent amount of volume there as roughly 1/3 of our flight searches involve foreign destinations or arrivals. One reason we do a good job is because our model works better; we search OTAs, consolidators, and travel suppliers themselves. Use our toolbar and do a search on Expedia for a trip to Paris." [Editors Note: On the one search I did (LGA –>CDG, leaving 9/13 and returning 9/18), Expedia's best price was $673 while SideStep's best price was $599 and included 5 additional options under $673. SideStep saved me $74.].
"In Europe, there are a bunch of little guys. The only real player is Kelkoo. We have not announced any international expansion plans as there's room to grow in the US. One thing that we've been careful about is to not spread ourselves too thinly. We've chosen to get deeper into the categories we provide. [The company launched vacation package search in June.] International expansion talks always come up, but we've maintained our focus."
Are you going to be the travel engine for many sites out there? How are you marketing?
We have done some co-branded partnerships. Knight Ridder Digital is one example. We have the capability, and we're open to those types of opportunities."
"We do a lot of search engine marketing (SEM) such as pay-per-click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO). We do a lot of PR and promotions. We talk to the consumer and industry publications. Word of mouth is also big. Our approach is more akin to Google than Expedia; we're not going to buy ads on blimps. We're going to build a great service and deliver something so good that friends will tell friends, colleagues, etc."
August 26th, 2005 at 6:31 am
Hi,
Just to say that Kelkoo is not the only player in Europe (even if it is the most important one).
We have developped a new travel shopbot technology called TaZzoo in France.
It is already used on France Telecom Wanadoo and Voila portals :
http://voyages.wanadoo.fr.
We are users of SideStep from the begining and we are very impressed about their work. I agree with Phil when he explain the importance of technology in travel search. Being able to do real time search is a challenge for the future.
Best regards,
Jerome
COELIS - FRANCE
August 26th, 2005 at 12:35 pm
I heard a moderator at TravelCom in NYC this year say: Meta Search Engines are the answer to a question no one asked. This was during a panel discussion on Meta Search in which Sidestep's then-current CEO was a part.
The engines definitely face an uphill battle; travel seems to resist change in technology at every step.
August 28th, 2005 at 4:27 am
The Meta-Ad search!
In the last several years, the online travel market has witnessed the birth of the meta-search travel website, which in essence a search engine that fetches rates from thousands of suppliers and third party websites and display them all in one place, hence making travel comparison much faster and easier.
The premise behind meta-search engines such as Kayak, Mobissimo, Sidestep and Farechase is interesting; the goal of simplifying and speeding up the online travel shopping process is a worthy goal and it does serve an existing need in a highly fragmented industry.
Today airlines and hotel shoppers must search multiple sites to find the best airline and hotel deal, not to mention studies has shown that supplier do not practice price consistency across various distribution channels, hence making it more imperative for the client to shop and compare before making an online purchase.
However, while the underlying foundation behind meta-search is legitimate, the method applied today is not, let me explain:
For a search business or a search website to be viable, the search results must have a neutral results component, the most well known search site of all: Google, has thrived due to the accuracy and comprehensiveness of its natural listings, results that continue to evolve and change as new sites get created and Google improve upon their search code.
Meta-search travel websites on the other hand, lack a key component in making them a viable travel search destination, which is the lack of neutral listings, all the results shown in the meta-search companies websites today are sponsored and paid for results.
Many of those sites mention that they offer the ability to compare hundreds or even thousands of supplier and travel websites, however in reality they offer a comparison tool among hundreds or thousands advertisers; users are in no way getting a fair, clear or comprehensive comparison among all suppliers and third party websites, in reality users are being tricked into thinking that they are seeing the full picture, but they are not.
Another way to look at travel meta-search today is to think of a Google like website where ALL the results shown are Adwords sponsored results; in fact a company like this existed once and it was called Goto.com, the company failed miserably as a search engine, but succeeded eventually as a pay per click provider, working with other search engines that do offer neutral search results, this company is known today as Overture.
Unless the meta-search websites will offer comprehensive, neutral and none-sponsored results in their listings, they will never evolve into major travel portals or destinations; at best they will become another tool to compare against and not to compare from.
Nawar Alsaadi, Founder of Global Hotel Discount (www.globalhoteldiscount.com)
August 28th, 2005 at 1:41 pm
Hi, I am the founder of http://www.dohop.com - a travel search engine.
dohop may be tiny still - but its strong! It is the only search engine that can find flight connections with European low-cost airlines, and it does this in less than 2 seconds. More to come this fall!
I do hope Nawar reads this because dohop welcomes all vendors even if they don't advertise. Ranking of search results is not biased by sponsorships.
Its exciting to be part of this new industry. Travel search engines are just starting out and the public seems to be somewhat confused about what they are. Are they travel agents ? Why don't they book this flight for me?
People also seem to mistake the likes of Expedia for "travel search engines". No doubt, this because these Travel Agents offer good search functionality for their catalogue.
The term "meta search engine" is sometimes used for the likes of Sidestep. This is not so good because elsewhere this specifically means "search engines that search other search engines". One example would be www.dogpile.com. Perhaps somebody will one day start a meta travel search engine that searches sidestep, kayak, dohop. What will he be called then?
Lets be clear about it: Sidestep, Kayak, Mobissimo, dohop, Allcheckin and the like are nothing but TRAVEL SEARCH ENGINES.
I would also like to suggest that we start using the term Travel Search Engine Marketing (TSEM). TSEM is growing fast and going to be big. By 2008 turning over more than $1.5bn so it probably merits an acronym.
Frosti Sigurjonsson
founder
dohop.com
August 29th, 2005 at 1:53 am
Nawar,
In a sense you are right, but there is a technical point that is relevant. The fact that the meta-search websites are paid by the suppliers does not mean that they are not neutral. I agree with Frosti.
Travel meta-engines are limited because it is very difficult to grab prices in real time on travel websites. This is not a Google like approach. You need a strong technology to grab information in real time on websites. If you don't have this technology, you need to build relationships with the travel websites and you become dependant to a limited list of actors. The funny challenge is : being able to set up travel metasearch tools which can grab prices in real time on an unlimited list of websites, including the airline companies websites (… kind regards to the GDSs)…
Try www.tazzoo.com.
Jerome thil
founder
coelis.com
tazzoo.com
September 23rd, 2005 at 12:36 pm
Hello - Price comparison for distriubution is questionable - can be argued either way. What Im interested in exploring is your distinction between "old vs. new" tecnology - "They understand new tech as opposed to Travelocity which means Sabre, which means old tech" - both means are seamless (live). Please elaborate on new vs. old.
Thanks, Marlene
December 4th, 2005 at 10:12 pm
The problem that travelers who use travel search engines have, is that they don't know which sites have biased search results and which don't. Since many of the sites get advertising revenue and referral fees from airlines and hotels, it's appropriate for travel shoppers to at least be suspicious. This has also been the case with the systems that travel agencies use. From what a travel agent friend of mine told me, it's long been the case that the order of travel options that agents see on their systems may be biased by the fees that the airlines and hotels pay Sabre, Galileo and the other global distribution systems. Why would it be much different in the travel search engine world?
By the way, one travel search engine that may actually be neutral is mySmartTrip from Enable Solutions - www.enablesolutions.com. They offer their software to companies and individual business travelers for a monthly fee and don't accept any advertising.
February 17th, 2006 at 3:32 pm
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May 11th, 2006 at 11:48 am
Orbedia.com - It's Orbitz and Expedia combined with a number of other partners to provide a comprehensive search and tailored results for users. What sets Orbedia apart from sites like Kayak, Sidestep and others is that users are directed to partner sites with results displayed. So you only have to input your search parameters once. This also guarantees that the rate you are looking at, is what you will pay. Finally, Orbedia allows users to explore and gather more data about the destination they are visiting, by viewing user comments on individual sites. We invite you to try Orbedia.com for your future travel needs.
Your comments and feedback are appreciated.
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