This is a post we have been hoping to write for a very long time, perhaps since the opening of this blog. Thanks to the launch of Google Trends for websites – we are now able to get verified statistics for European websites too, and even enjoy the ability of creating a country based review on each website.
This change of events allows us to publish a world exclusive review of the real scale of visitors to the travel reservations websites in Europe. We will try and let the graphs do most of the talking.
1. How popular are the leading OTA and TSE across the Atlantic?
In order to create this graph we used the top 3 services in each country. Europe is represented by Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium and The Netherlands. The online travel agencies used are: Expedia (in every market), Opodo, Ebookers, Travelocity, Orbitz, Cheaptickets, Edreams (in various markets). The travel search engines used: Kayak and Skyscanner in every market, Momondo, Sprice, Billigfliger (according to their leadership position in the market).
This review reveals the missed potential of both travel agencies and travel search engines in Continental Europe. The large European OTA are nowhere near the dominance Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity posses in the United States. The case for travel search engines is even worse with the potential squeezed at less than 1/5 of its comparative size in the U.S. This might come as a surprise given Europe’s far larger diversion in suppliers which should create a need for travel comparison services. Our explanation is simple: none of the existing services is able to give enough value in a market dominated by suppliers websites. TSE search results are closely tied to OTA, and when the latter don’t add enough value – the case for TSE is similar. Examples of European search engines that compare only travel agencies sites (such as Sprice.com) show that this notion is not yet understood. See Sprice’s jumping (during ad campaign) and dropping (during holiday reservations season) visitors graph for indication.
2. Can Kayak succeed in Europe the way it did in the U.S?
In order to retrieve this info we compared the leading travel search engines in the following markets: UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Belgium and The Netherlands – and added the data together. The review was made using Google Trends based on May 2008 data. The data for Kayak includes its international domain (Kayak.com) or local domains in every market. The ‘others’ column includes data taken from Sprice.com, Billigflieger.de, Momondo.com and Mobissimo.com.
This data for Kayak is quite straightforward and it shows that despite launching dedicated websites in the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy in the past two years, Kayak has not managed to capture a significant European audience and is trailing in every European market behind either Skyscanner.net or a local operator.
3. What does the European leading travel search website looks like?
This screen shot is taken from Skyscanner report on Google Trends, and it reveals the site’s quiet success. As far as Google’s data goes, Skyscanner is more popular than Kayak in every European market, and its quite widely spread across the continent, in a way no other travel brand besides Expedia has managed to do, and with perhaps a percent of the financial investment.
Hence, Skyscanner is the role model for those who wish to enter the European travel search scene. We believe it is successful for simply doing three things:
1. It offers a service that connects consumers directly with the airlines websites.
2. Presenting fast response and simple user interface.
3. Absolutely not relying on online travel agencies in the search results.
So, if Skyscanner is the rolemodel, why do everyone try to copy Kayak.com?
Beats us. And the users too.
Maybe in Europe customers are better protected from abusive and unethical business practice from corporations. In USA, some online travel sites make a significant income by cheating travelers (click on my name to read my case that proves EXPEDIA is a scammer).
With that in mind, unless european travel sites start scamming, they will never be so “succesful” (read suckcesful) as american OTAs.
Founded in 2002, WhichBudget (www.whichbudget.com) has as its aim to bring together the routes served by every worldwide budget airline. Although today we feature over 100 budget airlines, our main market is Europe (we feature some budget airlines you will not find on any other TSE, including Kayak and Skyscanner).
The reason other TSEs are not providing value to the customer is because they are looking at providing value for their investors instead. Only a few airlines pay commission for online sales, hence many TSEs will not bother redirecting the customer to the airline’s website. It is more profitable to link them to an OTA, which will pay 5-10 euros per sale.
WhichBudget ALWAYS links directly to the airline and we feature every budget airline irrespective of whether they pay commission or not. Why can we do this? Two reasons: 1) we are self-funded, hence no preassure from investors/shareholders and 2) we are not looking at dominating market share, but just visible pressence (hence, this comment).
Martino Matijevic
CEO, WhichBudget
http://www.whichbudget.com
One thing Skyscanner is not a role model for is design. The UI lacks simplicity, usability and can be a bit confusing at times. Kayak.com and Dohop.com have much better design quality.
it looks like a nice site, thanks..
Skyscanner has a quite good success in Europe, but I would like to suggest a deeper research enlarged to other TSEs making better performances in terms of services – and not only in terms of popularity – than Skyscanner and Kayac. Otherwise what’s the value for the final user?
I am the co-founder of http://www.mobissimo.com, founded in 2003 and based on over five years of research at Stanford University.
We have raised 1/223 of the capital of Kayac BUT today we are the most comprehensive search engine scanning over of 200 web sites: 68 airlines companies,58 low cost companies, private jets, 54 hotels chains, 10 car rental companies.
We have an international coverage: US, UK, FR, IT, GER, PL, IN and soon CH.
We are the owner of our technology permitting us to offer in real time – and not like skyscanner on request: “We check prices regularly and display the age in hours or days” – the best rate and itinerary, ideas for a trip, content linked to your destination.
Why don’t you think to reformulate your research as: the best performing TSEs and the most populars?
TKS a lot to give us the possibility to reply
Lucia Carniglia
co-founder
http://www.mobissimo.com
39% of market share for skyscanner is bit of surprise to us. But a very insightful article none the less. Thanks for sharing.
Johnis right, the europeans customers are protected from abusive and unethical business practice from corporations.
So does Etrip own Kayak? Etrip for Europe and Kayak for the US?