Apparently Google wants to purchase a travel data company, but the existing flight comparison websites don’t want them to. I can see why they wouldn’t: they’re all slow, unusable masses of advertisements for unwanted products that make it faster for me to call a travel agent when I want to plan a trip for a family of six. (And, yeah, I know the fire code says the hotel can only put four in a room. That simply means I won’t stay at that hotel.) Hell, it’s even faster for me to call an agent than it is to book directly through Disney.
Part of the problem with the current players is that their customers are the hotels, airlines and advertisers, not the purchasers of the product they’re selling. If they don’t think they can stand the competition, perhaps they should look at improving their product.
By the way, does anyone still use MapQuest?