Forbes.com: AOL takes a stake in KAyak:
"America Online Inc. plans to announce Friday it is taking a minority stake in Kayak Software Corp., one of a handful of companies whose software allows travelers to simultaneously scour the offerings of thousands of individual airline, hotel and car rental Web sites... " this is part of AOL's strategy to "establish standalone businesses that attract an audience beyond its Internet service customers."
Kayak's USP versus other aggregators is user post ratings and reviews, and its "personalisation" which saves users travel preferences and filters the search results for them.
Forbes.com review the pros and cons of aggregators and traditional online travel agencies for users and the effect they have on the online travel market and its complex relationships between suppliers and online agencies.
The aggregators are basically travel search engines which scrape the net for deals for the consumer to compare and then book with the supplier. This gives users access to inventory which is not otherwise sold through 3rd parties such as budget airlines.
Aggregators (which include www.sidestep.com www.qixo.com http:yahoo.farechase.com www.mobissimo.com www.kayak.com) deal direct with some suppliers but mainly use online agencies for their inventory. Expedia and Travelocity have both excluded Kayak from accessing their inventory. The Forbes article quotes the example of "Travelocity chief executive Michelle Peluso last month accused Kayak of poaching her company's inventory" which resulted in Kayak dropping Travelocity's inventory. The move by AOL is also likely to directly affect Travelocity's business from the travel & booking engine they provide at both Yahoo and AOL.
"Think of Kayak.com as the Google-meets-Amazon of travel search," CEO Steve Hafner, who co-founded Orbitz, said when Kayak launched early October."
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