With the proposed acquisition of ITA Software by Google, Kayak's apparent serial successes, Hipmunk buzz, Everbread expectations, and many more, it looks like the search problem is still looking for the best answer.
But with "best" being the mother of all ambiguous words, one approach is to measure search quality by technical parameters.
This can includes things like number of sources searched or number of pages/fares searched; speed to respond and sped to respond with lots of results; freshness of data; accuracy of results; amount of details returned for each option; relevancy to the query, and many others.
There are companies who specialize in comparing search engines, they run lots of parallel queries and measure who is able to find the lowest price. Inevitably, there is no absolute winner, results are provided as percentage of times where one search tool beats the other.
But is lowest fare the "best" measurement criteria?
Fifteen years ago, the market was delighted with innovative tools from the GDSs to automatically find the three best fares, then the nine best fares, then best fares also including two connections, then 200 best fares, etc, etc... it was all about best fares.
Today we seem to be back to a quest for quality, with tools trying to avoid flooding users with hundreds of options and suggesting the best options (cheapest fare, lowest CO2 emission, lowest travel time...).
But I question if either approach is better than the other.
Focus on the user need
A "good" search tool is one that helps the user find what they are looking for, and this is where it gets interesting.
Sticking with travel, in some cases the traveler is looking for the best price, in other cases for the best schedule; in some cases for the preferred airline, in other cases for the shortest connection; in some cases for a specific airport, in other cases for any airport. Parallel criteria apply to selecting hotels. And even for the same individual, the decision is different at any new trip.
The innovation brought by metasearch players has been to provide access to a very wide range of options, and let users manipulate filters across different dimensions to slice and dice the results set.
The search engine role is actually just to return as fast as possible a large dataset - the user will use different filtering criteria at each trip according to the priorities of the day.
But, most importantly, the user can make trade-off decisions after having checked the range of available options. This is not a trivial statement: enter eyewear.
Lessons from an eyewear shop
Someone I know comes from a family who's been running an eyewear shop for 40 years.
The moment a new customer steps into the shop, the owner can tell exactly which glasses they will end up buying. But he also knows something else: that he cannot tell them.
The customer will have to spend hours looking at and trying on all different models. Only at this point the customer will feel in a position to make a decision, and to buy the glasses.
The owner could save customers precious time, tell them upfront what they need and close the sale in 60 seconds. But if he did so, the customer would not be in a position to take a decision - and would go somewhere else.
The insight: a purchase decision is a function of the options available.
With this in mind, we can understand a number of things:
First, the roots of online travel: instead of just getting one or two itineraries from an agent, the web made it possible to directly check "all" options from the comfort of our desk and feel like we've taken the best decision by accessing all information directly.
We still do so today - feeling compelled to check across a multitude of sites to make sure we've explored all options. But are there too many options? Maybe...
Enter metasearch. Don't waste time checking out all those sites, they'll do it for you - and they'll give you the tools to easily compare, slice and dice according to your needs.
We know in fact there are limitations in the reach of each search engine, but if users trust the brand, it's enough. Give users the sense that they are taking an informed decision.
What's next - agony filters?
I believe there is still plenty of innovation possible in travel search, but success will come from the user experience. Give the user the feeling that they are taking the best decision.
Give a sense of the full picture, empower them with tools to check all details and, of course, keep it simple. But which travel search engine makes you feel like you don't need to check anywhere else?