Thursday, April 24, 2008

The Search Gap

Some good insight from Gareth Williams of Skyscanner on what's wrong with search in the travel sector.

What Williams terms as the 'gap' in search appears when you enter something like a flight number and what you get back is nonsense.

It is a problem that needs solving and is something that is holding the industry back.

"Travel desperately needs a solution to getting flight information and a number of other areas . One of the reasons that search gap exists is search technology for travel is really difficult. It lags behind other sectors," said Williams.

He goes on to say that if Google solves the problem there is the incentive of huge margins and it will make for a more efficient experience for consumers.

Over the course of today's Travolution conference we have heard a lot about different sectors of the industry taking each other on - kayak attacking tripadvisor and google - and now it seems Skyscanner is gearing up to also take on Google with its answer to much improved flight information.

Meanwhile, we have Thomson Holidays considering less reliance on the search giant.

It's that recurring theme of what do we do about Google?

Linda Fox, lead reporter, Travolution

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