New Travel Search Engines Start to Gain Ground

We all have heard of the  Expedia’s and Travelocities, but there are new search engines coming out that may transform this marketplace. Sites like Sidestep, Kayak, and Farechase are coming into their own as great alternatives for finding the  best fares.

These sites do not book travel, but they do let you find the cheapest prices for air fares, hotel, and car rentals. They have no vested interest in who you book with but allow you to book directly with the providers with the full information.

”These guys have become a credible threat and competitor to Orbitz, Travelocity, and Expedia,” said Al Lenza, vice president of distribution and e-Commerce at Northwest Airlines. ”It’s good for the consumer, because the search engines highlight the fees the travel agencies charge.”

Not everyone is convinced. Henry Harteveldt, vice president of travel research at Forrester Research, says travel search companies, sometimes called metasearch sites, are generating only about 1 percent of airline bookings. He said that’s not enough to survive.

”Metasearch 1.0 is dead,” he said. ”It’s time for Metasearch 2.0 to emerge and service a slightly different purpose.”

The travel search engines definitely face an uphill struggle. Expedia, Orbitz, and Travelocity handle the bulk of online travel sales in the United States. They are online travel agents that help customers find fares, rooms, or cars and then book them, usually charging a fee for the service they provide.

Travel search engines have a very different business model. Instead of selling travel, they assemble travel information. The searcher chooses the fare or hotel he prefers and clicks through to make a purchase directly from the airline or hotel chain. The travel search engines don’t charge their customers anything. Instead, they make money from small referral fees paid by travel suppliers and advertising on their websites. High volume is the key to their business.  via Boston Globe

 Another guide to inexpensive airline tickets is Cheapflights.com. They also have a blog. Another link for my favorites.

Posted on December 4, 2005 by The Travel Blogger

Filed under Hotel, Car, Automobile, Airline, Travel | | 4 Comments »

Thanksgiving Holiday Travel Will be Difficult This Year

With the Thanksgiving Holiday Season in full swing, mother nature is inserting herself into the mix, and is not being helpful. I got caught at O’Hare last night as storms made a mess out of Atlanta’s Hartsfield (Jackson) International Airport. These storms are moving up the eastern seaboard, making travel precarious with heavy rain and snow.

The storm that churned just off the East Coast could cause as much as four inches of snow in some areas. Other regions, prone to so-called “lake effect snow,” could get even more than that.

Students in several North Carolina counties were sent home early Tuesday because of snow and sleet, and weather forecasters said mountain areas could get heavier snowfall.

The National Weather Service predicted snow in the mountains of eastern Tennessee Tuesday morning and more snow later in the week could leave up to a foot of snow in the area by Friday. That includes stretches of Interstate 94 and the Indiana Toll Road. via Fox News

 

Posted on November 22, 2005 by The Travel Blogger

Filed under Car, Train, Airline, Travel | | 1 Comment »

Holiday Travel Expensive and Hard To Find

Your Thanksgiving and Christmas travel will be more expensive this year. Face the facts, the airline industry has reduced capacity and raised prices. The loss of the billions to subsidize your travel is now over, and if you want to travel to visit the family, you will have to pay for it.

Sensing that shift in the terrain, shrewd travelers, knowing precisely where they want to go during the holidays, booked early and snapped up good fares, according to online booking companies such as Travelocity, Expedia, Orbitz, Cheapfares and SideStep.

“People have been pretty savvy this year,” said Amy Ziff, spokeswoman for Travelocity. “We’ve seen record-breaking holiday weekends all year, and we use that as a precursor of what Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s will be. We’ve been predicting a busy season, so people have been booking very early.”

As fuel costs have increased and cash-strapped airlines have shrunk their schedules wherever possible to save money, fewer seats are available, Ziff said. To pay for fuel, she said, the airlines have increased fares, but even so, people are still buying. “This isn’t the best year for waiting until the last minute.”

Our family is having Thanksgiving the weekend before to save on travel costs. I think many other people will be looking at alternatives for the holidays.

Posted on November 13, 2005 by The Travel Blogger

Filed under Car, Train, Airline, Travel | | No Comments »

Fall Colors are at their Peak in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan

The peak season has arrived for those interested in traveling the Upper Peninsula of Michigan this weekend. So it will not get better than this for the UP. If you are not planning on watching football this weekend and cheering on the Wolverines or the Spartans, load up the car and head on off the UP for the leaf season.

AAA’s survey of state parks and regional visitor bureaus shows 90-100 percent color development in many areas of the Upper Peninsula, with red, orange and yellow hues found at Brimley State Park (Sault Ste. Marie), Straits State Park (St. Ignace) and J.W. Wells State Park (Cedar River).

In the Lower Peninsula, peak color season is still a week or two away — slightly behind schedule — with color development reported in 45-50 percent of the trees around Cadillac, Frankfort, Gaylord, Mackinaw City, Manistee, Rogers City and Roscommon. Color intensity is rated as “fair” to “good” in most areas.

Posted on October 12, 2005 by The Travel Blogger

Filed under Fall, Car, Hiking Outdoors, Travel | | No Comments »

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