If you are seeking the best airfare between say, Los Angeles and New York there are any number of aggregation or meta-engine travel fare sites to consult. But what if you are looking for an alternative mode of travel? Until now the options have been limited. Recognizing this gap in what is otherwise a very profitable search vertical, a new site, Rome2Rio has launched.
Developed by two former Microsoft employees, according to Venture Beat, its goal is to offer up travel search information for alternative modes such as rail or bus or ferry. It also has incorporated driving directions using Google Maps. The user types in arrival and departure destinations and the site pulls up the multiple routes and modes and travel times.
Travel search is undergoing a major shift, which is opening up new opportunities, such as this one, as well as disrupting current models. There are signs that the dominant providers in this space - Expedia, Orbitz - may become less dominant as airlines chaff against their restrictions, although recently, as TechCrunch reports, American Airlines has returned to the fold, chastened by its loss of sales when it pulled out of Expedia.
Sites such as Kayak, are stepping up their search capabilities. Microsoft's Bing signed an agreement with it to provide Bing users with flight search and pricing data. Users who type the phrase "fly to…" followed by a city name into the Bing search box can pull up the lowest priced ticket to that destination.
Lurking in the background, meanwhile, is Google’s prospective $700 million acquisition of ITA Software. ITA Software provides airline travel software used by most major airlines and travel sites. These companies have protested the acquisition, egging on the Justice Department to stop it on anti trust grounds.
If Google acquires it, these companies say, Google would be able to manipulate and dominate the online air travel market. They argue that not only does ITA provides the technology behind 65% of all carrier-direct online flight searches in the U.S., Google is already source of more than 30% of all search engine traffic to online travel sites.
