Articles tagged “search”

Google clearly places its own travel businesses front and center in its search results to the detriment of competitors. Google argues that this benefits consumers. If you buy that argument, then you also probably believe that Google always knows best.

What would make Expedia obsolete and cause Khosrowshahi to leave? Expedia's apparently outgoing CEO answered that question for us last year and talked about big technology trends a few years in the offing. But is he bolting because he thinks Expedia's best days are behind it?

Rectifying the difficulties in shopping for hotels online is a tremendously complex problem given travelers' fickle nature -- a business trip today, a romantic escapade tomorrow -- and varying quality levels from property to property even within a given brand. Trivago at least recognizes what one of the main problems is in matching a traveler's hotel preferences with the right hotel and hopes to address it with a heftier bank account after conducting its IPO.

Advertising technology is changing how marketers drive people to booking in digital, gone are the days of just search engine marketing.

In a few years, the streamlined, cross-platform searching that Hipmunk and Expedia are creating will be taken for granted because any company worth anything will have to offer it. So far Hipmunk Anywhere is more intuitive than Expedia's Scratchpad with fewer clicks or taps, but these are very early days.

To paraphrase a certain baseball philospher, it's getting late very early for flight-search startups. For any chance of success, they'd better offer something unique, have a lot of funding, and figure out how to attract substantial revenue elsewhere.

In rush for social efforts, hopefully travel brands are not forgetting search, which is the biggest direct funnel for transaction conversion.

Facebook's success with Graph Search depends entirely upon users' willingness to share as much as they currently do, and then some. Whether or not that will continue to be the case is still to be determined.

Road warriors need not apply, but Bootsnall is tackling a mammoth, complex battle for those leisure travelers who are set on exploring the world. If the Indie booking engine works as advertised, Bootsnall will make some headway because of it.

User-generated reviews are beginning to pay a significantly larger role in travelers’ decision processes, but hotels can still participate in the conversation by replying to positive and negative reviews.