Here’s an interesting article from theMatureMarket.com (the perfect resource for a 29yr old like myself) comparing the market share of visits to the top travel comparison engines to the market share of visits to the top online travel engines. According to Hitwise, “the market share of visits to four of the major travel search engines has increased by 304 percent in the past six months (April 2005 versus October 2004) and their contribution of Visits to the Hitwise Travel Agencies category increased by 250 percent when comparing October 2004 to April 2005. In the same period, the market share of visits of the top 5 travel agencies (Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, Yahoo! Travel and CheapTickets) increased by 11.3 percent, while their contribution of visits to the Travel Agencies category decreased from 65.3 percent to 62.2 percent. “
I think the travel comparison engines have developed smart businesses which deliver exceptional value to consumers (seriously, test them out!) and that the online travel agencies will be forced to develop their own engines or purchase SideStep, Kayak, Mobissimo, or Qixo.
