Thursday, November 01, 2007

Travolution Autumn Conf: Can meta search move beyond flights and price?

Travel Republic's Paul Furner muses on the future of meta search...

Meta search works for flights, but hotel rooms and holidays are emotive purchases, and meta search today is one-dimensional; you see the brand, the product and the price. We'd like to bring more of our content into the meta search environment.
There is also too much focus on price, he argues - can meta search broaden itself to cover less quantifiable things such as customer service?

Nathan Midgley

1 comment:

Steve E said...

Travel Supermarket are bringing much more content into their redesign.

The key thing for the meta engines is to make the experience as comfortable for a user as if they were buying from a tour operator or direct from a hotel chain. Value add content, reviews and friendly messaging will help (a lot of metas are very formal in their approach to the customer).