Big travel brands dismissed meta search websites such as Kelkoo as of no interest at this week’s EyeForTravel Summit.
Meta search websites offer consumers a targeted search engine to search and buy products such as flights or hotels. The consumer enters their request, such as a hotel in New York, and is returned a list of options.
“They have nothing to offer me,” said Simon Breakwell, president IAC Travel Europe. He added: “I’m not spending money to build my brand to shovel it through someone else’s like Kelkoo,” he said.
He added that search engines such as Google were “a very different story”.
Meta search engines have their place, said Cendant Travel Distribution Services chief executive international markets, Gordon Wilson.
“There is a portion of the market, the high volume, price-driven arena, where meta searches have their place,” he said. But he added: “It would undermine completely the investment we have made in our brand and technology – it is not where we see long term profit for our business.”
Also speaking at the summit was Sabre Travel Network senior vice president EMEA, Richard Adams, who agreed with his co-panellists. “They [meta search engines] have a presence in the market but it remains to be seen whether they can drive differentiated value, which they are not doing at the moment,” he said.
*Look out for more TravelMole reports from the EyeForTravel conference.
Report by Ginny McGrath
