Travel Metasearch Sites

On Tuesday, I wrote about the evolution of metasearch from flight prices to hotel reviews. Today, I tested the metasearch sites. I did the same search on each site. I looked for a San Francisco hotel in the financial district for the second weekend in March. I used most of  the sites that appeared in my Google top ten search results for hotel metasearch. I was curious which sites were found using this term and if they met expectations for a positive hotel metasearch consumer experience. I was especially interested since Kayak announced their entry into this online travel sphere. What I expected from the sites:

  • a comprehensive list of hotels
  • reviews from more than one site
  • pricing information
  • detailed hotel amenities, photos, etc.
  • enhanced filtering

I looked at UpTake, VibeAgent, HotelsCombined, Trivago, TripAdvisor and Travelpost. UpTake was the only site that offered filtered results for review content and from multiple sites. UpTake’s pricing information was more on target than Travelpost and in line with the other sites. Surprisingly, most sites delivered the same hotel recommendations in the top five results. Here are the results of my test:

First on the list was of course, UpTake.

Palace hotel won at UpTake

Sheraton Palace hotel won at UpTake

UpTake launched public beta in May, 2008 and is now the largest hotel metasearch engine online today. UpTake indexed 400,000 hotels culled from 5,000 sources and 20 million opinions.  They offered the biggest selection of hotels and answered the elusive quality question, “Is it worth it.” To deliver my search results, UpTake used “a travel ontology and natural language analysis to extract meta-tags from the collective intelligence of the Web and returned unbiased, personalized recommendations” based other travelers’ facts and feelings about hotels, motels, camping, beaches, spas, golf courses, attractions and restaurants. Translated that means UpTake’s filters were excellent. UpTake mechanized the work I do on a site by site basis and pulled it into a single source and then applied  technology to deliver accurate results for a desired trip. My test on UpTake is hardly unbiased, but it delivered the fab Palace Hotel in the heart of the financial district with rates below my $200 maximum. It delivered ratings on that hotel, plus reviews, amenities, photos with ease. I felt informed and satisfied.

VibeAgent search results

VibeAgent search results

VibeAgent is another travel metasearch site. When I ran a hotel search on VibeAgent.com, they compared pricing and availability in real time from 30 different travel sites and on 120,000 hotels. They promised the rates and availability displayed on VibeAgent.com were exactly what I’d find searching each individual site.

After the search was completed, they kindly sorted the information into a simple, easy to use format so I quickly found the “perfect” hotel for my needs.  First question they asked after I completed the first search step was if I wanted to select a neighborhood. (Yes, I did.) Their price, location and category filters were quite good and helped me instantly narrow down my search results. They allowed me to choose by loyalty program and told me the sites they searched. But I didn’t see the reviews I wanted from elsewhere, just their community, not quite metasearch for reviews or unstructured content.

The hotel they delivered first was the Mark Hopkins Intercontinental Hotel for $119.  The hotel was well within my price range and  it is a good recommendation. They showed four reviews from their community and a tripadvisor rating which I found odd since I wasn’t on TripAdvisor.  I liked the tabs for photos, video, etc. I received good results but the site only shows a few reviews unlike UpTake which showed multiple reviews from everywhere on the web.

Hotelscombined.com

Hotelscombined.com

HotelsCombined.com excelled at delivering hotel deals in a clean, easy to use design. They “search over 900,000 global hotel deals from over 30 merchants, and access over 1.5m consumer reviews, 3m hotel images, 2m hotel descriptions and maps.”  It was an impressive resource.  They said they offer more deals than UpTake or VibeAgent,  but the top three search results included the Mark Hopkins, The Sheraton Palace and only one  new entry,The W Hotel, just like the other two sites. They also offered photos, amenities and gave eight reviews from their community.  Hotelscombined offers great pricing metasearch but no true metasearch on reviews, they just show their own.  Pricing alone is insufficient, details are nice, but I would still check out hotel reviews on other sites prior to booking. They did offer filters such as popularity, price and stars, but not based on the content of their own communities’ reviews.  I really liked this site and plan on returning again.

Trivago also delivered the same hotel in my top three resutls

Trivago also delivered the same hotel in my top three search results.

Trivago is a price metasearch engine that also offers reviews from their community. They are really a price metasearch engine with a few reviews. For example, my final hotel was again,  the Intercontinental. The product page featured two reviews; from TripAdvisor and HolidayCheck.  Overall the site was a bit slow and I felt a bit lost. But within a few minutes it was delivering real time pricing results, I was converted. However, it did not offer pricing in U.S. dollars, nor was the information as cleanly presented as the other sites. I did appreciate the ease in posting a review if I was inclined to do so.  The filters were stars, price, type of hotel, best for (family, partier), sports facilities which included sailing, and amenities.  Overall, I received good results but my experience was less satisfying than the other sites, primarily due to the noise on  the page. To be fair, most consumers will probably ignore that for a lower price at a great hotel or may see it as friendly.

Tripadvisor offers thousands of reviews

Tripadvisor offers thousands of reviews

TripAdvisor started the great review hunt offers detailed hotel information with reviews from their vast community. They also offered general pricing information in the same manner as Travelpost and UpTake.  This is the only site that offered different hotels from the others.  I used the filters to see if the top result changed.  The same hotel was recommended for honeymooners and seniors and family. They need to work on that. I find it hard to believe honeymooners want to hang with the young family crowd.

The results were for my search were good but the rate information on other sites was more credible. I clicked on hotel photos and was sent directly to Expedia. “Gosh, do you want me to book or what? was my immediate reaction.  (Yes, I work in the travel industry and that taints my point of view.) They showed hotels with availability first which is handy. I clicked on a profile and only got geographic data, they probably have more information on their reviewers but it isn’t readily apparent like TravelPost.  They will have to react to TravelPost and develop their profiles to build belief in a reviewer.  To sum up, TripAdvisor delivers believeable, robust reviews and makes booking a room really easy. But, they have a lot of competition on the rise and their filters need further development.

Travelpost's review filter is handy

Travelpost

Last on my list is Travelpost (Kayak). They recently announced a move into hotel metasearch in a brief article on HotelMarketing.com and are supposed to launch the service late this month.  They “search over 200 websites for hotel reviews, hotel information, and hotel rates and includes includes data on 134,000 hotels.  They were the only site to promote reviews first and price second. My search again brought up the Mark Hopkins Intercontinental but the price was listed at $330 to $619. This is markedly different than the other four sites by hundreds of dollars. The price disparity was bothersome. Travelpost also listed 33 reviews with a short demographic description of the reviewer, as in “38 year old male with a moderate budget, traveling for leisure” or 45 year old female, with a luxury budget, traveling for leisure.” The reviews were plentiful. I also liked the review filter tool on the hotel page, but once I entered my filters I managed to filter out all the reviews on the hotel.  The other filters were just for basic amenities yet again.

The demographic description created trust in the reviews because I can find someone similar to me based on trip purpose, age and gender.  But I am not too sure the demographic tool served my travel purposes.  I wanted opinion & personality too–those nuances of language give more clues to the reviewer than their age.

What did I expect from a hotel review metasearch site?  I wanted a set of reviews that described the consumers’ experiences at the hotel. I wanted accurate pricing information and I didn’t want to visit five sites to check the results.  I expected filters on reviews too, beyond the basic price & amenities tools found everywhere. Only UpTake  delivered more than basic information right on the hotel page.  Others offered it, but the filters didn’t deliver enough believable results.  Hotel review metasearch is only completely done by UpTake. We will see what the TravelPost.com and Kayak site delivers in the next few weeks.

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