Hmm, Forbes says that travel is facing more competition from search engines, but they don’t really expand on that point in this short piece…  A couple of interesting points from the article though:

  • Unique visitor traffic to online travel sites was down 6% year-over-year on average in the first quarter, with traffic to Orbitz down 16% and Cheaptickets up 1%.
  • However, page views at Cheaptickets and Orbitz were up 42% and 6% year-over-year, respectively.

I would like to hear if there is concern from the online agencies about Yahoo’s Travel Portal and them mixing their own offers in with search engine results.  Or Google’s mixing Google Base offers in with its results. It could demand some changes in how agencies and direct suppliers market on search engines.  It makes good sense to familiarize your self with Google Base and Yahoo Travel Submit, as well as Yahoo! Search Submit.

Here’s the full piece from Forbes.com:

Online Travel Faces Search Competition - Forbes.com


Tagged as: Travel Marketing, , , , , , ,