The emergence of the “semantic web” is ushering in a new wave of openness and accessibility.

XML feeds and APIs are becoming increasingly popular, making it easier for sites to partner with each other and offer valuable services to their users.

Single sign-on services such as Facebook Connect and OpenID further enable the sharing of information between sites.

“Advents such as these facilitate the incorporation of user-generated content on your site, thus allowing you to leverage users’ input in a collaborative way to enhance your product,” says Kayak.com’s manager search marketing, Shehzad Daredia.

Citing an example, he said, TravelPost displays hotel ratings and reviews that were posted directly on TravelPost as well as reviews from 200+ other sites, such as Yahoo Travel and IgoUgo. These new services also provide the added benefit of publishing your users' site actions to other destinations on the web; for example, Kayak allows users to publish their searches to their Facebook profiles, and TravelPost allows users to post hotel reviews to both TravelPost and Facebook simultaneously.

Evolution

The industry is already seeing hints of the more intelligent web in the guise of meta search engines, review aggregation sites, price-scraping engines, social trip-planning tools, global wish lists, etc. Web 2.0 travel companies are working to gather information from multiple sources that already exist on the web, in ways that are valuable to travel consumers. As a travel supplier or intermediary, the challenge is to make your website and/or social media campaign flexible enough to be intelligently absorbed by these new web tools.

“We are truly witnessing rapid evolution in the online travel landscape,” said Daredia, who is scheduled to speak during the forthcoming Online Marketing Strategies for Travel USA 2009 Conference (June 3-4, Miami). Fore more information, click here: http://events.eyefortravel.com/online-marketing/agenda.asp

“We believe Kayak and our new hotel meta-information site, TravelPost, are at the forefront of this trend, providing consumers with leading travel search technology to help them research and book the perfect trip amongst the many options that are available to them. In addition, we offer travel advertisers the ability to engage with the 35 million travelers who search the Kayak.com network of travel sites each month. Vertical search sites such as Kayak.com convert at rates 2-4 times higher than generic search sites such as Google, and travel marketers are subsequently directing more travel spend on these sites.”

Travel planning

One of the fundamental attractions of the Internet is that it provides the consumer with an unmatched number of choices – all just one click away. Seemingly every week a new site launches aiming to meet a need from the popular to the obscure. However, the relatively low cost of startup and distribution online can breed an overwhelming array of choices of widely ranging quality which take time to visit and sort out. This is where consumers need guidance in finding the best sites and deals quickly.

Considering this, is the success of web 2.0 travel sites and content types making planning process harder for travellers?

Daredia doesn't think this is the case.

“The average online traveler visits a minimum of five sites before booking. At Kayak.com, we search more than 440 travel brands and present hundreds of options for the user to compare. We also provide powerful sorting and filtering tools that help users find the perfect itinerary at the right price. Then we provide a choice of where to purchase--directly from the supplier or from an online travel agency,” he said.

“Sites like TravelPost provide hotel information for more than 140,000 hotels. Finally, on one site, users can review hotel information, photos, reviews, rates and availability. We also applied the Kayak.com filters to reviews so travellers can sort through hundreds of reviews and find reviews only from people like them,” he said.

Online Marketing Strategies for Travel USA

Kayak.com’s manager, search marketing, Shehzad Daredia is scheduled to speak during the forthcoming Online Marketing Strategies for Travel USA 2009 Conference (June 3-4, Miami).

Fore more information, click here: http://events.eyefortravel.com/online-marketing/agenda.asp

Helen Raff
VP North America
+44 207 375 7582
Reuters Events (former EyeforTravel)

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