on 01 October 2009 
(No Ratings Yet)Kayak undoubtedly has an unwelcome surprise for TripIt, Dopplr, Traxo and Sabre’s TripCase, among other contenders.
That’s because Kayak has quietly introduced in beta Kayak Trips, an itinerary-sharing service, to about half of its registered users. The service also is being tested on Kayak’s UK site and in France, Spain, Germany, Italy and India.
Kayak thus becomes the first metasearch engine to get into the post-reservations management game.
Consumers can forward their travel confirmations from airline, hotels, travel agencies and other suppliers to trips@kayak.com, where they will be turned into a master itinerary.
Kayak users can then share their travel plans with friends, associates and enemies by e-mail.
The elements of the itinerary can be added to a calendar, and users can append notes and add additional events.
Kayak, of course, doesn’t book any travel itself, but will be enabling travelers to aggregate their reservations from a panalopy of suppliers.
The company will be rolling out additional functionality for Kayak Trips before an announcement.
No word yet on the business model, but I wouldn’t be surprised if an ad or two appears in itineraries along the way.
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One thing which I should have added is that Kayak brings something to this sector that its competitors don’t: global scale. Kayak has websites in the U.S., the U.K., France, Spain, Germany, Italy, India, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. That’s a lot of eyeballs and reservations to aggregate into Kayak Trips.
Also, Kayak has a great track record in technology. It hasn’t rolled out full functionality yet into Kayak Trips, but I have to believe that we are in store for something special based on past performance.
I’m guessing the boys at Dopplr will be extra pleased with the sale now, if they didn’t already know this was happening when the deal was signed.
At NileGuide (http://www.nileguide.com/), we know Kayak has a world-class team. The one element they’re missing to fulfill the consumer value proposition in travel more completely is to provide content in a travel planning context. Organizing all the booking data is great, but it would be even more powerful alongside all the “what you do when you get there” information, like attractions, restaurants, nightlife, events, and even some hotels that you can’t book through Kayak and their partners.