Kayak co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, Paul English said he welcomes Google in to the travel search space, but thinks his smaller company can be nimble and quicker to adapt to changes in the market and points out that Google does not have the best record when it comes to being successful with adding new services through acquisition. Kayak also has partnered with Bing to help them with travel search results.
Kayak is in the process of going public, so English was limited in what he could discuss about their company’s possible IPO.
The company has recently struck a deal to help Bing with their travel listings. Krista Pappas, Bing’s global travel industry director said “We’re harnessing the industry leader [Kayak] as a partner that can manage the innovations in metasearch.”
Pappas also credited Kayak with being the innovation leader in the travel space. “Teaming up with KAYAK, a leading innovator in travel search, allows us to provide a more comprehensive travel search experience. In the coming weeks KAYAK will provide flight search results in the U.S. from multiple cities, airports and airlines, giving customers access to a larger set of flight itineraries as they work to plan and book travel on Bing,” she stated on the Bing blog.