Dublin-based budget accommodation giant Hostelworld is making its first foray into providing flight search facilities by partnering with metasearch site Skyscanner.

The white label deal between the pair sees a Skyscanner search widget included in a dedicated flight channel on the Hostelworld site.

Users have identical search parameters on the site as available on the existing Skyscanner service, although they are redirected to the Skyscanner site to view results rather than staying on Hostelworld.

Details of the agreement – length of the deal, business model – have not be released but white labels are still seen as a useful way of spreading a service into different corners of the web, including travel and non-travel sites.

Other budget accommodation sites, such as Hostelbookers, have yet to include flights as another user channel on their sites.

Hipmunk launched two weeks ago, but it was only the other day that I got a chance to take a look at the site.

In fact, I had been so busy the only way I knew about Hipmunk was when two different people both told me I should try it out. Since then I’ve seen a huge number of mentions, so whoever is running their PR probably deserves a medal.

Plenty of others have written on the benefits of the website itself, so I’d prefer to instead follow the PR angle a little – there is no doubt the world of public relations is changing, and I’m not the only non-PR person trying to claim some insight into a field in which I have never worked.

When I look at some travel tech startups, I think of companies like TripIt and Hipmunk that really seem to have tapped into the non-travel industry Silicon Valley-types as a launch pad for building hype both within and outside of the travel sector. Nadav Gur of Worldmate made a similar point in reference to Tripit back in January 2010.

Anyway, the first press mentions I can find for Hipmunk were on August 17 in Venture Beat, TechCrunch and Lifehacker. A day later Hipmunk was given a TLabs Showcase on Tnooz, and then other travel sites picked up the story.

A few days later Read Write Web gave Hipmunk a good review as well – being covered so extensively by the non-travel press is rare for a travel startup, but it really helped Hipmunk get the message out to thought leaders in non-travel technology and the more general field of website innovation pundits; indeed, it is these people who then spread the message virally to other influencers and their followers.

After the influencers and their followers, you then had various people coming and telling me I have to try out this new site.

In the case of Hipmunk, by this stage the hype genie was well and truly out of the bottle and it seemed like I must have been living under a rock for a few days, having not already heard of it.

I can’t help but think that Hipmunk is really a very similar type of user experience to Wotflight, and a somewhat similar business model to Wotflight as well; except that Wotflight was first, and in many ways is actually better.

Too bad Wotflight is closer to Fortitude Valley than Silicon Valley, so the PR hype is never going to get anywhere near what Hipmunk founder Steve Huffman can generate.

I’m sure Wotflight would love to be selling $70,000 worth of tickets a day, as Hipmunk reportedly did only eight days after launch.

At the other extreme to Hipmunk on the hype-o-meter, you have a new travel inspiration start up called Wanderfly trying to generate some pre launch buzz.

PC Mag gave it a positive writeup, Tnooz also got in with a TLabs Showcase, and I too had been given special access to the site prior to launch.

I first asked a non-travel industry type to review it, but got back the response after a few searches, that it wouldn’t stop them using TripAdvisor as a preference.

At this point I decided to take a look for myself. They are really pushing their integration with Foursquare, Facebook, Yelp and the like, but spending a bit of time on the site really got me thinking about how difficult it is to get travel inspiration right.

Social integration is one of the keys, but given that the future of travel search and travel inspiration are morphing into the one stream, I can’t help thinking that to really generate some buzz in this space (and then the subsequent traction with repeat users) some serious filtering from a large cache done within the user interface layer combined with a totally fresh approach to user experience is required.

And, of course, be hooked into the Silicon Valley personal networks. A big ask I know, and hence why the opportunity is still wide open on this.

Qantas launched an inspiration tool called Trip Finder over six months ago, but I haven’t seen too much mention of it in the press other than a few early stories.

The user interface contains some nice filters in an effort to help guide and then sell to undecided leisure travelers but once again, unlike Hipmunk, the PR machine will have a hard time getting out of first gear being so far from Silicon Valley.

Maybe the next best alternative is to substitute Silicon Valley for a day at the Hunter Valley, an excellent wine region less than two hours from Sydney!

Amadeus picked up a new customers, Croatia Airlines,  for its Affinity Shopper flight-search solution.

And, two additional customers, one in Europe and the other in Asia, will pilot an online travel agency version of the search solution by the end of the year, Amadeus says.

Amadeus was the subject of a lot of buzz in late 2009 when Affinity Shopper, which enables travelers to begin their air search without necessarily having a clear idea of destination, dates or budget, took top honors at PhoCusWright’s Travel Innovation Summit.

Lufthansa was the launch partner for Affinity Shopper.

Rudy Daniello, director of product management and distribution for Amadeus globally, says Croatia Airlines has had Affinity Shopper in production for a few months and Finnair is occasionally testing it.

Here’s the start page for Affinity Shopper on the Croatia Airlines website:

Lufthansa introduced Affinity Shopper on its websites in Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. in late 2009, and Daniello says it’s “doing well,” but “still in takeoff mode.”

It remains to be seen just how much traction this nontraditional way of searching for flights gets with travelers.

Daniello says Affinity Shopper is the airline version of Amadeus Extreme Search and an online travel agency version — with the brand name still to be determined — will be rolled out before the end of 2010, with one European OTA and one Asian OTA agreeing to pilot it.

Benoit Janin, Amadeus worldwide vice president of development, pricing and shopping, says introducing an OTA version of Amadeus Extreme Search is “a bigger challenge” for Amadeus because of the more complex computation involved with multiple airlines.

And, a metasarch version of Amadeus Extreme Search is being readied for a 2011 rollout, Daniello says.

“We are following a logical sequence,” Daniello adds.

Amadeus considers Extreme Search as an inspirational “pre-shopping stage,” and integrates it with “shopping,” where precise criteria is known, through its Master Pricer low-fare search and merchandising tool.

By the end of September, Amadeus plans to add to Master Pricer an Amadeus Ancillary Services engine, which would enable airline websites to display ancillary services such as executive lounge access and extra-legroom seats within the shopping flow.

For each flight and fare family, travelers would be able to choose and book desired ancillary services and see a corresponding price display.

Daniello says the ancillary services engine is being introduced as many European airlines are in the process of filing their ancillary services with ATPCO, which is believed to be in the final stages of establishing a standard.

The adoption of the standard by North America airlines is less robust, Daniello says, with some airlines in North America seeking to file their ancillary services with ATPCO and others opting to retain them for their own internal channels.

As the airline industry is  bent on developing new merchandising capabilities. Amadeus believes that Master Pricer and its new ancillary services functionality combine “a fully scalable shopping platform” and with “a new massive computation platform,” highligfhting how Amadeus has been innovative in adapting to “the fast-evolving demands of the travel industry.”

But, as Master Pricer competes with air-shopping and pricing solutions from Everbread, Vayant, ITA Software and Travelport’s e-Pricing,  Amadeus has plenty of critics, as well.

Says one: “We have already noted a high percentage of failures on Master Pricer and we believe that there will continue to be a higher scale of errors no matter who is generating the result. We have seen that Amadeus internally often retains a cache of an airline’s availability and then builds on that cache, its other cache of Master Pricer results. This, in turn, means there will be a cache of cache data.”

UPDATE: It turns out the Finnair is not a signed customer for Affinity Shopper, as the original version of this story said, but has occasionally tested the product.

With many U.S. metasearch and online players mulling their air search options in light of the pending Google acquisition of ITA Software, Amadeus is negotiating with U.S. airlines in a bid to gain customers in North America.

Rudy Daniello, director of product management and distribution for Amadeus globally, says the U.S. is “definitely a target.”

“There is no barrier to Amadeus operating in the North America market,” Daniello says.

Kayak for several years has used ITA Software’s QPX solution in the U.S. and Amadeus Meta Pricer in Europe, and Kayak indicated several weeks ago that it is testing potential new providers following the Google-ITA Software announcement.

Other Meta Pricer clients include Skyscanner, Wego and Fly.com.

Like QPX, Meta Pricer enables airlines and metasearch sites to access airfare pricing and availability.

Daniello says Amadeus has embarked on a push to improve its content in North America and is negotiating with airlines on tighter integration of fares and availability.

“A lot of actors are looking around” for new solutions in the wake of the Google-ITA announcement, Daniello acknowledges.

ITA Software definitely has “the right connections in North America,” Daniello says, while “we [Amadeus] have ours in Europe and Asia.”

ITA Software has a handful of airline customers in Europe and Asia, where Amadeus dominates in air search.

Whether Amadeus can duplicate ITA Software’s access to airline pricing and availability data in short fashion in North America remains to be seen.

Daniello concedes that the push for Madrid-based Amadeus to establish more of a foothold in North America depends on the outcome of airline negotiations rather than any technical obstacles.

Ironically, Amadeus used to own a piece of ITA Software but the two had a falling out and Amadeus shed its stake.

Asked about the emergence of new airfare search players, including Everbread and Vayant, Daniello said new players such as Vayant “don’t play at the same level” as the more mature, ITA Software and Amadeus.

Benoit Janin, Amadeus worldwide vice president of development, pricing and shopping, concurs, adding that it would take a long time for new players to master the user experience and establish links with airlines.

Says Janin: “There’s a lot to be done beyond having a search engine with some fares.”

A Vayant spokesperson says: “We’ve received very positive feedback from airlines and other partners we’ve met with because we add  new layers of functionality and value that others cannot.”

About whether Vayant’s product has the maturity to gain traction, the Vayant spokesperson adds: “Vayant is both visionary and scalable as an industrial strength B2B platform and uniquely allows for personalization, split ticketing and all taxation, ancillary revenue models and so much more than search and pricing.   A GDS could consider Vayant competition or collaborator, and we’ve seen both reactions in the market.”

Amadeus has a competitive advantage in airfare search in Europe and Asia because its Altéa platform is the common IT platform for the Star Alliance. Amadeus therefore hosts the reservations systems for many European and Asian carriers and gets optimum access to fares and availability.

In fact, an Amadeus spokeswoman says: “Over 140 airlines contracted for Altéa Reservation, over 90 airlines are using or about to use Altéa Inventory, and more than 40 airlines are moving to Altéa Departure Control.”

In North America, both Amadeus and ITA Software are still looking for their first reservations system customers.

ITA Software had a reservations system deal with Air Canada and Amadeus landed United Airlines, but both agreements fizzled.

If Amadeus is making a new push for Meta Pricer customers in North America, other players, including Expedia, Travelport, Sabre, Everbread and Vayant may be doing so, as well.

I have been looking at who is doing a good job in providing consumer information on fees and ancillaries charges.

Given the industry and consumer advocacy focus on this – I really wanted to see who does a good job.

So, I went to some of the top online travel agency sites, GDSs and the search/metasearch sites who can provide data and then this table is the results.

Global Distribution Systems

Search/metasearch engines

Online travel agencies

Notes:

• *1 – Sabre Explore Flight Fees
• *2 – Farecompare domestic fee chat
• *3 – Kayak airline fees

Frankly, I am surprised – I would have thought that by now consumer advocacy would have driven sites to do a better job.

So either the sites are lazy or they are fatalistic about doing the job.

It has been a long while since I did an overview of consumer support – but I am actually surprised at how little there is out there to help users.

In almost all cases – it was hard to find the information on each site.

So I could actually have missed if the individual site does have the information. In that case I will apologize for not finding it but then chastise the site for not making it intuitive and easier.

If there is a lesson here – it is that if you are consumer facing you should have an easy way to simplify the way airline information is presented. It will also help to build trust in the mind of the consumer.

That has to be a good thing – so why aren’t you doing it?

Metasearch is supposedly becoming much more than simply providing a list of fares from the cheapest to the most expensive.

And now websites specialising in meta search or price comparison are starting to build tools which display results and data in a different way, especially new kid on the block Hipmunk.

The simplest way of doing this is by using the reams of data a site has been collecting in order to give another interpretation of fares, allowing the user to select based on other factors besides price, such as convenience, time, etc.

Taking a lead prhaps from Kayak and its Buzz tool, Travelfusion has also headed down the fare calendar route, creating a new service called Price Trends.

The tool currently works only from the homepage of Travelfusion, but automatically monitors the parameters entered in the main search area, including departure, destination and dates.

The system then produces a graph to indicate how fares will change over the same period. The user can select a particular date and be redirected to the relevant page on the system.

This is the first incarnation of the system, released this week, but it sis hoped return legs will be added soon as well as a dedicated channel within the site for the tool.

Travelfusion, like Zoombu, has spent much of recent months developing its door-to-door system, where users can get results based on various forms of transport, but this latest move shows there is still life in the development of tools to enhance traditional air search!

TLabs Showcase focus on startups featuring US-based flight metasearch provider Hipmunk, created by the founder of Reddit.

Who and what are you (including personnel and backgrounds)?

We’re Steve Huffman and Adam Goldstein. Steve previously co-founded Reddit, one of the most popular social news sites on the Internet. Adam just graduated from MIT, and is the author of AppleScript: The Missing Manual.

What financial support did you have to launch the business?

We have angel investments from Y Combinator and SV Angel.

What problem are you trying to solve?

It can take hours to find the right flight buried deep inside one of the results pages of a metasearch site or OTA. We’re trying to help people get a feel for the reasonable options in a matter of minutes.

Describe the business, core products and services?

Our business is pretty simple: two of us working in our living room on code all day.

In our current version, our core product is our interface. We use data from Orbitz to power our search and provide booking links

Who are your key customers and users at launch?

We’re targeting sophisticated travelers and web surfers—people who are eager to try out a different site if it can help them save time

Did you have customers validate your idea before investors?

Not formally, but we showed some early prototypes to some friends and they liked it a lot.

What is the business AND revenue model, strategy for profitability?

At the moment, we’re going the commissions path—in the future, we’re going to be exploring all options.

SWOT analysis – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats?

Strengths:

• Features you can’t find anywhere else, like instant sorting, automatically hiding terrible flights, and intuitive filtering.

Weaknesses:

• Unknown brand, missing airlines like Southwest.

Opportunities:

• Acquiring a large sliver of the sophisticated traveler market.

Threats:

• Lack of brand loyalty, large and well-funded competition.

Who advised you your idea isn’t going to be successful and why didn’t you listen to them?

We didn’t get any complete rejections, but plenty of people told us, “it’ll be a lot harder than you think.”  They were right.

What is your success metric 12 months from now?

This: Have we made the experience of flight search less painful for tons of people?

NB: TLabs Showcase is part of the wider TLabs project from Tnooz.

Although not a user experience expert I have the benefit of having built many different ecommerce businesses.

In my view the front end is as critical as the back end functionality but it is always a very delicate and difficult balance to get right.

My attention was again drawn to the topic by Delta Airlines new website. Here is one of the most frequently used sites in travel ecommerce anywhere, but being kind to them it is a work in progress.

So what about just the user interface portion of travel websites? A few months ago I wrote another piece about the same idea… Are consumers getting tired of travel websites?

For travel, serving up the right mix of functionality for an ecommerce (as opposed to a pure content, although the rules apply to all) site can best be described as describing an iceberg from the surface in the dark wearing dark glasses.

The user experience always ends up in a battle with different people in the organization fighting to drive their point of view as the dominant one.

Keeping it relevant and interesting is actually a pretty hard thing to do. And everyone has an opinion…

One of the leading exponents of good design is Gerry McGovern.

He is also one of the few people who approach the issues from a holistic view which covers not just the screen interaction but also the other supporting parts of the experience such as the customer service via email, chat and call center.

If you go to the Wayback machine you can watch the evolution of most websites. I often do this when I am speaking to groups who are responsible for managing the interface to a user.

For example, Google’s search page is simplistic and clean, it has changed little over the years.

However, its iGoogle pages are the usual dog’s dinner of eye-straining attention-seeking elements.

Since I was there at the beginning, I look at the evolution of Expedia and each time they do a refresh I am happy to see they have clean up the clutter.

I love how the team in Bellevue cut corners and reuse content – sometimes inappropriately.

Until he last refresh they were re-using images of a small group of models as a call center person.

They didn’t always get the right ethnicity for the website. It was a tad tacky. I see that has essentially disappeared in the latest round of refreshes.

But with mobile now becoming a necessity not a luxury, there is the need to allow for the device to be from anywhere, using a plethora of different devices and browsers.

It is getting REALLY hard to deliver a consistent and working experience to the different users.

One tool I use to illustrate this is the Google Browser window sizer – it shows clearly what your community is missing.

Lately I have stopped using my regular browser (Firefox seems to not like me any more) and begun using four different platforms – Safari, Chrome, Opera and good old Internet Explorer.

So, yes, I do have favorites. I like the way search/meta search companies present their information – my favorite is Skyscanner. But I do wish they would go back to the original design. I loved that one.

I have more I dislike. I am not really a fan of Kayak’s interface, for example.

Among the online travel agencies, I still think that Orbitz does the best job. I love SeatGuru but have been disappointed since Expedia-owned TripAdvisor took over.

I hate the British Airways site. It is a pile of broken links and spaghetti. How they get customers to navigate is beyond me?

I dislike intensely Delta’s results server. They have no clue what I am about. I used to have airline favorites, but since they all went for further complication I find them actually harder to navigate.

I often have a horrible feeling that they are out to both confuse me. That lowers my trust in them.

My favorite OTA for the input screen is Cleartrip, and they are by no means perfect.

I hope that people will start re-thinking their whole approach and start thinking about what I call natural search as the driving force behind their designs.

We can now do this – the technology behind the scenes and access to the content easily allow for it.

So here are some suggestions for UX people when contemplating the user experience for travel websites.

1. Remember what your mission is for the site. To make a booking, for example

2. Stop throwing unnecessary and complex stuff at me. It does little other than to lower trust and annoy me.

3. Clarity. Make things clear please. Don’t make the monkey work hard for getting the treats.

4. Remember that time is money. If I have to spend lots of time using the site to save a few dollars then in real terms it is actually cheaper for me to call a travel agent and they do the work for me.

5. Tell me what is going on. Don’t assume I know. I love sites with breadcrumbing that tell me where I am in the process

6. Oh yes, finally, PLEASE KEEP IT SIMPLE.

Simple? Just ask the BBC. They removed many useless and unnecessary links and their new site is faster, more appropriate and, well, it just feels nicer (highly technical term, I know…)

Busy few weeks for Cheapflights Media ending with the simultaneous launch of hotel search in three countries for its fledgling metasearch engine Zugu.

The addition of hotel channels on its UK, Germany and US sites comes just ten days after the existing flight-focused Zugu was released in the US for the first time.

The UK version has also added car hire search this week.

Cheapflights says it has used third party providers for the hotel and car hire search on the system, rather than build the metasearch technology itself as it did with flights.

Although unconfirmed, Zugu hotel search appears to be powered by Hotelscombined on all three country sites, similar to the hotel channel partnership on rival metasearch site Skyscanner.

The hotel search channel allows users to filter by price, type, location, facilities, star-rating and brand. A map search tool is also included.

It is unclear which organisation is powering the car hire search. Cheapflights also declined to disclose any details about the partnership.

Zugu launched in the UK in the February 2010, followed by a quick roll-out in March to Germany.

Travel deals publisher Travelzoo is wasting no time rolling out its redesigned main website, quietly launching in the UK last week and other markets expected soon.

The company gave its flagship US business first try with the new look in late-June this year after finally disclosing the long awaited changes to its online offering would be made just a few weeks before.

Recently installed chief executive Chris Loughlin says the changes to the UK site will be rolled out across its other country sites, including Australia, Canada, China and Spain in due course.

The next site on the roadmap is expected to be Germany in a few weeks.

The new websites feature a cleaner, open feel, are 1024 pixels wide, compared with the former version, which was 800 pixels by 600 pixels.

Instead of the existing Cheap Flights, Holiday Deals and Cruise Deals heading three busy-looking columns, the redesigned homepage has a Find Deals section in the middle section of the page with new search functionality, enabling consumers to search by destination, keyword and deal locator.