Kayak Tries a Corporate Travel Side Hustle for Big Businesses


business traveler at airport in London

Skift Take

The American Express GBTs of the world won't lose sleep over this. But Kayak's effort should be a wake-up call to the sector. Technologies like blockchain may be seeding more competition at last.

Kayak, the travel price-comparison service, on Tuesday debuted a corporate travel service for large companies.

Kayak's move does not reflect a major strategy shift. Yet the relative ease at which the consumer business created a corporate travel offering suggests that long-hyped concepts like blockchain may be leveling the playing field in a sector dominated by a handful of large players.

The product originated when PwC came to Kayak looking for help managing its corporate travel program.

Kayak provided its user interface and its supply — with more than 2,000 supplier connections. It teamed with Blockskye, a startup that provides distributed ledger technology for back-end services, especially connecting data for booking, payment, expense, authorization, and settlement.

PwC employees have now, for a few months, been booking some business trips using Kayak. When searching, they only see results from PwC-approved hotels and airlines and fare types, such as economy class. If a flight is canceled, a road warrior can rebook it, and all records wil