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Lowfares.Com Travel Web Site Re-Launches as Premier Online Travel Comparison Research Site
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Added: 11/16/2005
Type: Summary
Viewed: 587 time(s)
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Lowfares.Com Travel Web Site Re-Launches as Premier Online Travel Comparison Research Site
The travel web site LowFares.com, originally launched in 2001 as an online travel agency offering discount airfare, hotels, car rentals and vacations, has re-launched itself as the premier travel product comparison research site for consumers looking for discount travel.
The focus of LowFares.com is to provide consumers with the first true, side-by-side comparison of prices from various travel sites, accessible from a single site. This saves the user time by eliminating the need to visit each site individually to perform their search since LowFares.com directly connects the user to the travel sites to compare the trips.
“We’ve radically changed our business model where we served consumers as an online travel agency, competing with other sites and earning revenue from each booking and made a fundamental shift to become an online travel marketing firm where LowFares.com works with other travel sites to promote those merchants,” said Joshua Lippiner, president of LowFares.com, a travel web site for discount travel.
From its launch in 2001 until recently, LowFares.com competed with Expedia, Travelocity and other similar sites utilizing deep partnerships with various back-end travel providers to handle the booking, ticketing and support. These companies included OneTravel.com, Hotwire and Priceline.com.
In 2004, recognizing that there was a major shift occurring in the online distribution of travel products with increased competition directly from the suppliers, LowFares.com began researching alternative business models to meet the increased demand for comparison travel shopping and discount travel.
“Our focus quickly centered on comparison shopping and finding ways to make the consumer’s ability to find travel easier,” Lippiner said.
In response to this, research was conducted to identify consumer pain points. The following pain points were found in this order:
1. Finding the best price
2. The number of sites people have to search to find the best price
3. The amount of time it takes them to search for the best price
LowFares.com also learned that the average consumer shops three sites, on average, before making a travel purchase.
LowFares.com executives concluded that consumers are essentially “feed-up” with researching travel online, since they have to spend so much time jumping back and forth between searching suppliers and online agencies. There are also sites that aggregate information from multiple sites called meta-searchers, but many consumers include those sites as another place they need to compare.
“With this knowledge, we developed the first, side-by-side comparison travel site for consumers, letting them directly connect to suppliers, agencies and meta-searchers. We save the travel shopper a considerable amount of time since they only have to enter their search once on LowFares.com, pick three sites they want to compare and then we launch those sites, run the shopper’s search and display the three sites side-by-side,” Lippiner said.
LowFares.com also recommends different merchants based on the user’s needs. For example, if a user is looking for a flight in the next 21 days, LowFares.com may recommend Hotwire as one of the sites for the best price. This would probably not be the case if the customer was leaving in six weeks.
LowFares.com re-launched this new air travel web site in August 2005 with Expedia, Hotwire, Priceline, LowestFare, CheapAir, TravelGrove, JetBlue and Kayak signed on as sponsors. In October 2005, comparison shopping for one-way air was added to the site capabilities and in November, LowFares.com will complete its re-launch with the release of comparison shopping for hotels.
LowFares.com currently allows the user to comparison shop directly for discount travel on dozens of travel sites including: Expedia, Bookings.net, Hotels.com, Lodging.com, Delta, US Airways, American Air, Continental, Northwest, ATA, FlyTed, Travelocity, Orbitz, Comfort Inn, Comfort Suites, Econolodge, Clarion and more.
About LowFares.com
LowFares.com, a travel web site, was created to make researching discount air, hotel, car rental and vacation packages simple online saving the consumer time and money. It is not an online travel agency. LowFares.com helps match users with the best travel site for their needs, and makes it easy to shop around. LowFares.com has created a way for consumers to simply search dozens of other sites from one place. Users enter desired travel information once and search multiple sites with one click.
LowFares.com’s Mission is to become the first destination on a consumer’s journey when shopping for discount travel options. |
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