Launched quietly last night, but press released this morning, TripAdvisor has finally launched its flight metasearch product in the UK.
The service is a like-for-like copy of the US product which launched in February 2009 and comes amid significant changes in the metasearch arena in the UK.
At present the UK is the only country site outside of the US to have taken the product, although a spokesperson says the remaining domains on the roster (currently running at 12 after the US and the UK) will all receive the functionality in due course.
TripAdvisor was originally hoping to unveil the metasearch tool in the UK in September, so executives will be pleased at the early-October roll-out given that it is well known that the technical aspects of the product kept engineers in Massachussets busy for over 12 months before the US version launched earlier this year.
A spokesperson stresses there are no exclusive deals with any airlines for preferrential listings in the results. This is same for its online travel agency partners, including the Mother Ship, Expedia.
However, fares from partners such as British Airways, Opodo and Expedia can also be found in a re-directed area of the site for each provider.
The launch of the service comes against a backdrop of renewed interest in overseas metasearch by some of the US grandees.
Travelzoo‘s fledgling fly.com site launched in September after months of testing and it is understood that Kayak is looking to reinvigorate its overseas sites after the furore of European managing director Faisal Galaria’s dramatic exit from the company in April 2009 following a disagreement with chief executive Steve Hafner over global strategy.
NB: It is probably worth pondering whether Tripadvisor will implement something like the Eezeerator into its new flight search engine at some point:
http://bit.ly/r1YLr
Would certainly add something to its overall reviewing mix perhaps?
I am still not sure of the commercial viability of all these meta flight searches. I get it if you have an audience already and want to milk them some more, but is it profitable to buy new cux and make money from them on a flight meta? The figures don’t add up to me but maybe I am missing the point! It wouldn’t be the first time ….