The New "Big Three" of Travel Search Engines: Competition Dies

[slerickson]

I've been using Agoda for hotels but stopped after the last trip. Positive ratings and reviews in no way matched my experience. Switched to hotels.com and it was much better.

Airfare I check sky scanner and then check airline sites once I know who services the transit points. Usually book thru airline direct, sometimes Expedia.

Edited September 22, 2015 by slerickson

[jasonsamui55]

So there is the priceline group, the expedia group and the tripadvisor group. what are some major travel sites that are not part of this big 3? i can think of airbnb of course. what other ones are big and yet also independent? its nice to try to support the smaller companies and actually get a price that isn't coming from a monopoly.

[simon43]

what other ones are big and yet also independent?

For Asia hotels, there really are no independent biggies. Asiarooms was acquired a few years ago by Laterooms (I think). Hostelworld and Hostelbookers combined this year, Flipkey is part of TripAdvisor.

Yes, there are many small OTAs. But their choice of hotels is also limited.

I checked my hotel booking stats. More than 95% of guest bookings are made via the Big 3.

[thailanddogerator]

Asiarooms was sold 1 billion baht by the pattaya french owner and is now closed.

Hello. Looking for AsiaRooms.com?

You’re in the right place – only AsiaRooms.com has now joined forces with LateRooms to create an even better website for hotels worldwide.

The same thousands of hotels across Asia are still here. As are the great deals you’re used to.

All that’s different is the name.

So for future hotel bookings, make it happen right here with LateRooms.

For any questions about existing bookings, just get in touch.

[thailanddogerator]

But why do people keep using 1 website when hotelcombined.com can check for you all over the internet ?

[phuketrichard]

what other ones are big and yet also independent?

For Asia hotels, there really are no independent biggies. Asiarooms was acquired a few years ago by Laterooms (I think). Hostelworld and Hostelbookers combined this year, Flipkey is part of TripAdvisor.

Yes, there are many small OTAs. But their choice of hotels is also limited.

I checked my hotel booking stats. More than 95% of guest bookings are made via the Big 3.

not true;

Hotel travel ( 140,000 hotels worldwide) is still a good one and is now affiliated with MakeMyTrip Limited... India's biggest portal

Little back ground

Planet holiday was the first booking agent here in Phuket, (late 90's) than eventuality became Agoda than brought out by Priceline ( which netted Michael, original owner, a cool 50 million$$)

Blair ( who ran HT) was working for Planet holiday and ran with the hotel bookings on his own,

they are still run out of their offices down in Chalong

Edited September 23, 2015 by phuketrichard

[simon43]

Yes, I forgot about HotelTravel.

My hotels are registered with them. I get maybe 0.0001% of all bookings from HT...