Fly.com is finding that with increased traffic comes additional fees to ITA Software.
The development is hardly surprising, but some disclosures in Fly.com parent Travelzoo's recent 10-Q filing with the SEC shed some light on fees travel metasearch companies have to pay to third-party search vendors such as ITA Software.
Travelzoo states that its cost of revenues rose $435,000 in the first quarter of 2010 compared with the year-earlier quarter, and that the lion's share of that increase -- $325,000 -- was primarily due to increased fees paid for user searches on Fly.com.
Fly.com uses ITA Software's QPX system for airfare shopping and pricing and it's a good guess that ITA Software's bill to Fly.com for user searches may have climbed in the neighborhood of that $325,000 for the quarter.
Fly.com debuted in the first quarter of 2009, so it's traffic was just getting up to speed. So, it's not surprising that the costs it pays to its primary vendor for user searches would have increased, as well.
Compete Inc. shows Fly.com's unique monthly visitors increasing 325% from March 2009 to nearly 1.2 million in March 2010.
ITA Software, which is rumored to be coveted by Google, has the reputation of being very good -- and expensive, too.
If travel volumes pick up as expected, one can expect that ITA Software will be collecting more fees from an assortment of travel-metasearch websites and airline websites this year.
Fly.com's disclosure about user fees doesn't provide the whole picture about what ITA Software charges, but it offers a glimpse into the economics.
Undoubtedly, the user fees are only a portion of ITA Software's tab to metasearch companies and airline websites. For example, there likely is a hefty implementation fee, as well.
And, on another front, a look at user fees related to website searches also highlights one reason many travel websites object to being scraped.
More scrapes -- especially if they aren't qualified leads -- mean more fees and internal costs.