Online Travel: Way to Go

I was recently attending the Eye For TRAVEL SEMINAR-INDIA, which was held in New Delhi.

The content was indeed rich; and if you want to know where the online Travel Inductry is heading...one thing that clearly came out was META SEARCH for Travel is gaining speed

While Meta Search has been in existance since the last 2-3 years, and while it is true that most of them (except maybe become.com) have not really made it big...the experience that they have gained over the last few years and the gradually growing communities around them is indeed a testimony to the fact that this area is going to grwo dominant soon.

According to Wikipedia(http:wikipedia.com)

"Meta (Greek: μετά = "after", "beyond"), is a common English prefix, used to indicate a concept which is an abstraction from another concept, used to analyze the latter. For example "metaphysics" refers to things beyond physics, and "meta language" refers to a type of language or system which describes language."

Now if you notice there is suddenly a flurry of activity around TRAVEL META SEARCH ENGINES or Travel Search Engines (TSEs)

Mobissimo.com; farechase, kayak, zoomtra (an indian site) etc. are good attempts at the same.

Now why do you need a Meta Travel Search engine: especially when you already have sites like: Makemytrip, yatra,travelocity, travelguru, cleartrip, etc.

The reason is simple: Consumers need the best prices and eventually most of the travel sites (like Yatra or Make my trip) may have different packages, different inventories and different prices.

The fact remains that no single site is sufficient as a one stop destination; hence consumers not only surf Online Travel sites but also Travel Search engines (or Travel-Meta-Search sites.)

So, for sure this is one of the things that will be talked about in 2007 in India.

What are the bottlenecks for a Meta Search site:

Before that; Meta searh sites normally do not need to be bound by a specific database or reservation system: That's 1 point in their favour.

However if a Meta search engine cannot cull data from the entire universe of Online travel aggregators, hotels and airlines; then they defy their very purpose. (Now I accept that this is Herculean task, but on a general note being vast makes sense here)

That's one of the most agonising problems that I guess Meta Search engines are facing worldwide. And if Someone in India needs to be succesful the following has to be considered religeously:


1. Tie up with as many OTAs and airlines, hotels etc. as possible

2. The platform should be such that the engine should not be biased (or potentially biased) for or against any specific type of reservation system or OTA site.

3. The interface should be such that it should give a very clean yet smart look. If possible make your interface shine with cutting edge technology, and try to be better than even an OTA site.

4. For God's sake invest in Customer care


I will conclude with an intersting quote in an article in The Wall Street Journal, by Michelle
Peluso, the CEO of Travelocity,: “We continue to evaluate them all [TSEs], but we’re still not convinced that any of them are good for consumers, suppliers,or us. We see these engines as commoditizing travel at a time when we’re working hard with suppliers to go in the opposite direction.”

So, there's gonna be a lot of action in 2007 in this vertical; let's watch and discuss.