AOL, Yahoo and MSN expanding travel offerings
AOL, Yahoo and MSN have all announced their plans to offer travel shopping comparison and booking tools on their web sites.
This is a major reversal from their prior policy not to compete with Travelocity.com and Expedia who pay each tens of millions yearly for exclusive travel bookings on AOL, Yahoo and MSN sites.
AOL is making a minority investment in interactive services company Kayak Software to get the travel search site off the ground.
“Travel is a sizable and growing area and a primary category of focus for AOL Media Networks, especially as we build out our suite of travel products both on the AOL service and the Web,” said David Lebow, executive vice president of AOL Media Networks, in a statement.
The deal also further validates the travel search engine model and puts AOL on an equal footing with Yahoo, which recently launched its own travel search site, reports Dow Jones Newswire. Travel search engines allow users to type in travel destinations and dates, and then scour multiple travel Web sites for the cheapest prices. The engines then direct users to those sites to make the actual bookings. Travel vendors, like airlines or hotels, pay the search engines a marketing fee to be included in the searches.
Travel search tools differ from online travel agents, such as Travelocity and Expedia because a few popular, low-cost airlines – such as JetBlue and Southwest Airlines are available through search engines, but not travel agents.
Travelocity spokesman states that they are not overly concerned with these events and they doubt travel search engines are good for vendors or customers. And, believe that the search engines are commoditizing travel at a time when they are working hard to go in the opposite direction.
AOL says they are in close touch with Travelocity, exploring new opportunities.
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