Kayak’s Data Aggregation Strategy: The Secrets Behind Its Comprehensive Travel Information

Kayak is renowned for its ability to provide travelers with a comprehensive overview of travel options across multiple platforms. This article explores how Kayak gathers information from various sources, the challenges it faces, and its business model.

The Aggregation Process

Through a combination of methods, Kayak is able to gather and present travelers with real-time, accurate information about flight schedules, prices, and availability. This is achieved in the following ways:

APIs (Application Programming Interfaces): Many travel sites and airlines provide APIs that allow Kayak to access their data directly. This includes flight schedules, prices, and availability. Kayak uses these APIs to pull real-time data, ensuring that users have the most up-to-date information. Web Scraping: For sites that do not have APIs, Kayak may use web scraping techniques. This involves automatically extracting information from web pages, allowing Kayak to gather data on prices and availability from multiple sources. However, screen scraping content on airline websites may not work very well due to frequent screening by airlines and blocking of robotic IPs. Partnerships: Kayak often partners with airlines, hotels, and rental car companies to gain access to their inventory and pricing. These partnerships can provide Kayak with exclusive deals and more comprehensive data. User-Generated Data: Kayak may also collect information from users who search for flights or accommodations. This data can help them analyze trends and improve their services.

Data Aggregation and Normalization

Once Kayak gathers data from various sources, they normalize it to ensure consistency. This means converting different formats and units into a standard format, making it easier for users to compare options. This process is crucial in providing users with a seamless and user-friendly experience.

By combining these methods, Kayak can provide users with a comprehensive overview of travel options across multiple platforms, making it a one-stop shop for travel planning.

Business Model and Technology

Kayak's business model is based on providing a high-quality, useful service. This service has built a large audience of users, and unlike traditional web search, Kayak does not include all travel content. Therefore, if you are not paying a fee to Kayak for advertising or lead generation, you will miss out on sales to competitors.

Kayak makes money from referral fees and ad revenues (CPM and CPC). What is interesting is that Expedia and other online travel agencies actually pay Kayak for leads. This is similar to how Google works - a business model based on paid inclusion and advertising.

Technical Aspects

The three methods for a metasearch to get access to content are:

Technology Provider: In Kayak's case, this is ITA, which is owned by Google. ITA is effectively a monopoly on US-based airline shopping. They perform price calculations, return fares, and provide deep links into airline websites. XML Feed: This is how Kayak incorporates most online travel agency content. Online travel agencies prepare and regularly update a cache of their available travel products and then push this to the metasearch. Screen Scraping: Some metas use this method to get content from airlines who are not willing participants. However, Kayak does not engage in screen scraping to provide all possible content, hence the absence of certain airlines like Southwest and Ryanair in their results. They would, however, have the capability to include content from willing and paying participants with whom they are not integrating through the other methods.

A good example of how patchwork putting together a metasearch can be, despite the challenges, is the need to have business deals and tech integration with all the OLTAs and providers. Building a great metasearch is a challenging and comprehensive effort.

Conclusion

Kayak's success lies in its ability to aggregate diverse sources of travel information, normalize the data, and provide a user-friendly interface that makes it easy for travelers to compare options. Whether through APIs, partnerships, or user-generated data, Kayak constantly works to ensure that its platform is the go-to resource for travelers.