Alvin Tan's Profile

But because the technology kept getting better, Broussard was on a treadmill.

“I remember being very impressed by the features. It was incredibly cool technology,” says the developer hired in 2000. “But it wasn’t a game.” It was like a series of tech demos “in a very chaotic state.”

Aggregators are Web sites that function like travel-themed versions of Google.

Bookings cannot be made on most aggregator sites; they act as search tools or referral services to airlines, hotels or online travel agencies

Some travel aggregators go a step further by paying you to book your vacation through them. Every time you book a flight, hotel room, cruise or other travel option through their site, you rack up points.

When you rack up enough points, you can trade them in for cash back.

Bottomline: The old school online travel sites could become the likely buyers of newly funded start-ups, and their fancy services.

At the same time, there has been pushback from airlines and suppliers, some of which have resisted the aggregator model.

The result: The golden ring of a truly complete search, covering all the options and all the providers, is still a ways away. No single site actually finds every flight option, every fare, or every seller.

Though working as a third-party, you have limited control on inventory; the allocated or contracted inventory is nevertheless perishable - an allocated room not sold is certainly lost - and demands for Revenue management principles to maximize profits.

For Travel agents, it is essential to benchmark against your competitor set in terms of price and market share.

No major hotel chain, such as Marriott and Radisson, is in SEMphonic's top 10 for overall ratings analyzing paid and organic results combined.

Hotels fare much better in organic listings, where they make up 48 percent of the top 50 sites while travel aggregators are only 6 percent.

The site may be focused on travel reviews, the booking of travel, or a combination of both.

Fare aggregators redirect the users to an airline, cruise, hotel, or car rental site or Online Travel Agent for the final purchase of a ticket.