Watch Out TripAdvisor…Here Comes TravelPost!
TripAdvisor recently announced the launch of a flight metasearch engine, which effectively positions it directly in competition with Kayak. And from what we can tell, TripAdvisor is prepared to give Kayak a run for it’s money. Although the flight search product is still in beta, it flaunts several features that Kayak doesn’t already have, including a fee estimator that helps users determine the true costs of a particular fare. It calcualates the hidden costs of a fare after asking a few simple questions, such as how many bags you’ll be checking, if you’re a member of the frequent flyer program, or even if you’re going to splurge for an alcoholic bev on the plane (a rule of thumb I always follow). TripAdvisor also has the advantage of being MASSIVE, with over 8 million U.S. visitors a month.
As soon as TripAdvisor dropped it’s bombshell, rumors started flying that Kayak had a “competitive comparable” up it’s sleeve, which would be announced fairly quickly. Sure enough, last week Kayak detailed plans to relaunch TravelPost, a hotel review site that was part of the acquisition of Sidestep back in 2007.
We were excited to hear the news that Kayak is going head-to-head with TripAdvisor using the revamped TravelPost product. Why? Because our very own VP of Engineering, Jim Donohoe, was the lead developer on the site and worked closely with our friend Sam Shank, the founder and CEO of TravelPost, until it got acquired by Sidestep in 2006. Sam and Jim obviously did a lot of things right because they were able to top over 700K unique visitors, reach profitability, and build the second largest hotel reviews site on the web (behind TripAdvisor, obviously).
Kayak is applying the same metasearch model it uses to aggregate fare results from all over the web to expand the reach of TravelPost’s reviews. The site will relaunch this Tuesday, March 24th as a hotel search engine that will pull 1.4 million guest reviews from over 200 websites and room rates from five to ten websites. It will also allow users to search by demographic data so you get reviews back from people who are your age, share your same interests, etc. IMHO, this will be a huge advantage because it’s absolutely mind-numbing to sift through the hundreds of thousands of reviews on TripAdvisor without having a way to filter them out.
It will be interesting to see if Kayak can influence a shift in behavior, as most people habitually check TripAdvisor for reviews. However, we’ve seen the aggregator model work in fare searches, and Uptake’s strong executive team has already taken an solid stab at lodging and activities. Kayak entering the fray intensifies the battle for market share in an exciting space.
Check out Sam’s article for his two cents on the challenges and opportunities that lay ahead for Kayak in their quest to bring down the behemoth!
