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16 min

KAYAK's Role With Consumers & Destinations

Daniel Wiener and Matt Clarke share how KAYAK empowers travelers, explain how destinations utilize their services, and happily debunk common travel planning myths. Daniel Wiener is KAYAK's Senior Director of Ad Sales and Data Partnerships, and Matt Clarke is Vice President of North America Marketing.

"KAYAK is a metasearch, so we're not an OTA, we're not an online travel agency. And really as a metasearch, we make it easy for people to search and compare hundreds of flights, hotels, and car rental options. What we really pride ourselves most on, though, is the comprehensiveness of the options that we give our travelers."

[00:01.640] - Intro/Outro

This is Brand USA Talks Travel, elevating the conversation about international travel to the United States. Here's your host, Mark Lapidus.

 

[00:09.250] - Mark Lapidus

So far for this year, according to KAYAK's data, which countries are looking for the most for active adventures?

 

[00:15.540] - Matt Clarke

In the United States, we've seen an increase in France, Germany, the U.K., and Spain. One thing I want to note about our data, and there's more markets on top of that too, is that a lot of the information is skewed based on where we have some of our largest presences globally. So, KAYAK is a very global organization; we have a huge footprint in Europe, so not totally surprising to me to see a lot of our European markets coming to the top of the list. But in terms of the countries that have the most interest in traveling to the U.S., we're seeing a lot of Europe. We're seeing France, Germany, U.K., and Spain. To go outside of the European markets, where we're seeing the most interest is Brazil, and then Australia. Both of those markets are seeing a large percentage of their searches headed towards the U.S.

 

[00:59.620] - Mark Lapidus

I'm glad to welcome two friends from KAYAK today to the podcast. One is a new friend, Matt Clarke, Vice President of North America Marketing; and the other I've known for a few years, Daniel Wiener, Senior Director of Ad Sales and Data Partnerships at KAYAK. Welcome both to Brand USA Talks Travel.

 

[01:15.150] - Matt Clarke

Happy to be here. Thank you.

 

[01:16.310] - Daniel Wiener

Yeah, thank you so much for having us, Mark.

 

[01:18.190] - Mark Lapidus

On this episode, I'll be asking our guests to share lots of insights into travel to the United States - that's what we do, of course; the evolving landscape of travel marketing, and we're also going to talk about the increasing use of AI and data. But before that, Matt, let's have a quick summary of KAYAK's company history, for those that don't know.

 

[01:35.040] - Matt Clarke

Sure. We go way back in time to 2004. So in 2004, Kayak was founded by Steve Hafner, our CEO, and original co-founder Paul English. And at the time, they realized very quickly that there was gonna be a whole lot of places for you to go and book your travel. Airline websites popping up all over the place, online travel agencies starting to become much bigger, a large part of the landscape. And what Steve and Paul quickly realized is what we still realize today, that we really need a solution to compare all of those places together so that you can choose what's right for you. So KAYAK was founded with the idea that comparison shopping is the future. And I would say it's very much the present, and the future still. So that you can compare your options in one place and book whatever is right for you.

 

[02:18.890] - Mark Lapidus

Daniel, let's set the table here by explaining travel metasearch, and how KAYAK is really different than an OTA.

 

[02:24.630] - Daniel Wiener

KAYAK is a metasearch, so we're not an OTA, we're not an online travel agency. And really as a metasearch, we make it easy for people to search and compare hundreds of flights, hotels, and car rental options. What we really pride ourselves most on, though, is the comprehensiveness of the options that we give our travelers. So an important distinction to make is really the fact that you can start your search on KAYAK and book directly with the airline or the hotel partner.

 

[02:53.020] - Mark Lapidus

And that doesn't hurt your feelings?

 

[02:54.710] - Matt Clarke

No! You know, when you're looking at a menu, you don't want to just see part of the menu, you want to see the whole thing, so you can pick what you like the most. And as we know, depending on the scenario, depending on the situation, you might prefer to actually book with the airline direct. You might, for a particular reason, maybe it's price-based, prefer to book with an OTA in a particular scenario. So we show you both options and let you decide. And so what people don't know about Kayak as much, that we're trying to demystify, is the ability to be able to book direct when you start your search on KAYAK and have that flexibility.

 

[03:27.700] - Mark Lapidus

Well, considering that travelers appear to look at more than 30 websites before they make a decision, that makes a lot of sense to me. I'd like to hear about your AI-powered tools like Hacker Fare. I know that you've got several of these, so could either of you explain those to us?

 

[03:40.910] - Matt Clarke

Hacker Fare is a great tool that we've built at KAYAK over the years. Hacker Fare combines two one-way plane tickets into one round trip, so that travelers can save time, they can pick times that could be more convenient,` and then save money in a lot of instances. So that's a great tool that we have.

 

[03:56.360] - Daniel Wiener

A couple other great tools that I could add that Kayak has made their name on from the outset, and has continued to evolve as time has gone on, is our Price Alert tool, which a number of other companies have adopted at this point. But it allows you to set a price alert for a specific route, and we actually notify you when that price has dropped so you can lock it in instantly. We also have upper funnel tools like Kayak Explorer. From your home airport code, you can find all of the great destinations that you can have based on your budget or the type of trip that you're looking to take. All in all, we're really trying to put you in the driver's seat to pick that best trip for you.

 

[04:32.170] - Mark Lapidus

Can you describe KAYAK's Best Time To Travel feature?

 

[04:35.180] - Daniel Wiener

Yeah, what a fun tool. I suggest everyone to use this when they finish the podcast episode. But this was launched ahead of last summer. It's one of the questions we get asked most often. Whether you're in the travel industry or not, you might have heard this from a friend, like, "When's the best time to go to xyz?" It's a really fraught question, and depends on a bunch of different variables. So what this Best Time To Travel tool really does is it allows you to choose from our 280,000 routes that are available on KAYAK, and it incorporates predictive data from our billions of travel queries to forecast future flight and hotel prices. We also show you what the weather is going to look like, how busy we expect that destination to be, so we can help you find the right exact time based on those variables to book your trip. A big thing is shoulder season; a lot of times we can help you find those optimal shoulder seasons for a particular destination, and you can play around and find the best trip for you.

 

[05:32.110] - Mark Lapidus

So eventually everybody kind of does the same things, because you can innovate, and then a competitor or somebody that's in the same space will adopt what you've innovated. So how does KAYAK stay ahead of the curve?

 

[05:42.780] - Daniel Wiener

Yeah, I think it's a great question. What I would say first and foremost is that innovation is embedded in our DNA. And I'll let Matt speak a little bit more to this, but within our company culture, how ideas and innovations come to the fray is by having smart people working specifically on travel each day and every day. So when it comes to, like, an innovation lab or something of that nature, it's not something that we have dedicated within the KAYAK organization, but it's my team on the commercial side working with marketing on Matt's side, or product and engineering, and really identifying: what are traveler problems that exist, and how can we attack that?

 

[06:20.780] - Matt Clarke

The innovation is the fun part of the job. So we take it as a badge of honor when we're copied or when somebody else comes to market a little bit after us. I think everybody from bottom to top in this organization would love to only work on new and exciting things. And it's a part, like Daniel mentioned, it's a part of what we all do. We are all locked in on keeping this industry moving forward and figuring out what's next. And AI is obviously a huge part of that. It's what keeps it interesting; it's part of what makes travel awesome to work at.

 

[06:47.110] - Mark Lapidus

So obviously data is in your DNA. What do you collect, and how do you guys use it?

 

[06:51.730] - Daniel Wiener

So we don't collect any user data, first and foremost, but we do really monitor very closely our travel search data, and that's partially what we're here to discuss today. So what we do know and have a very good thumb on is where a traveler is traveling from, where the traveler is going to. We also can look at different variables such as advanced purchase windows, so, how far in advance is that person looking for a particular destination? The length of trip or the length of stay: how long are they going or planning to go into the destination for? There are also really other cool ways that we can highlight and identify audiences. Luxury travelers versus economy travelers, family travelers. And this is all based on our first-party KAYAK data, and allows you,  as really, like, an industry partner, to understand: where are things going? Because as we know, these trends evolve at a very quick rate.

 

[07:42.290] - Mark Lapidus

I'm sure that you've both played the card game 20 Questions, right?

 

[07:45.560] - Daniel Wiener

Absolutely.

 

[07:46.160] - Matt Clarke

Sure.

 

[07:46.660] - Mark Lapidus

If we had time, we'd play 20 Questions with your data - and maybe we'll do that at some point in another episode, because I think that would be fun. But let me just hit you with a couple of them. Which countries have the longest length of stay when visiting the United States? Looking back on the data for the last year or two.

 

[08:01.000] - Daniel Wiener

Yeah, so with regards to length of stay, we're actually seeing India come out on top, with a 21-day length of stay on average.

 

[08:09.030] - Mark Lapidus

Go India. It's a long flight.

 

[08:10.940] - Daniel Wiener

Yeah, it's a long flight. You want to have the time to be able to experience the destination you're going to, and when you're coming to the great country of the U.S. you want to be able to see a multitude of destinations, most likely. It's followed by countries like Australia, which also makes sense for the very same reason. And then Germany, Brazil, and Korea round out just above a two-week length of stay on average.

 

[08:33.400] - Mark Lapidus

Now if we just get the Canadians and the Mexicans to stay for two weeks, that'd be great. Let's work on that. Which countries have the largest increase in searches compared to last year, and do you know what they are searching for in the United States? Do you have that data too?

 

[08:46.940] - Matt Clarke

It's a little bit less clear on exactly where they're searching for within the U.S., but I think it's safe to assume a lot of the larger cities. But the biggest year on year trends we're seeing, it's a lot of South America. We're seeing Peru, we're seeing Brazil, and we're seeing Colombia with some of the largest year-on-year increases. So a lot of South America in there. And the reason for that, we believe, is because there's been a lot of flights added from those markets into the U.S. market. So obviously with more availability, anyone would know that that is why we might see some increased interest from those markets into the U.S.

 

[09:17.630] - Mark Lapidus

Any emerging markets or trends that you think destination marketers should be paying attention to?

 

[09:22.300] - Daniel Wiener

Absolutely, we're always happy to share our thoughts on this. This is what we spend a lot of our time thinking about internally and when we're working with our partners. Right now we're seeing a very fascinating shift happening in the travel industry, driven by a couple of key factors. So first and foremost, there's a growing emphasis on experiences. People are prioritizing travel more than ever. Not really just to relax, but to enrich their lives, get new experiences, really create lasting memories, traveling with friends or family. But there's also another factor at play, that's an economic factor. So just one anecdote: if you take India, for example, reports by Booking.com and McKinsey show that India's middle class is expected to make up 47% of the population by 2030. This is quite significant, because I think as we all know, the middle class spends the most overall on global travel. So seeing that increase in that way is a big deal. I would also just add, additionally, you talked about destination marketing and emerging trends there, so what we just talked about, and those different trends that are happening, that's important to keep in mind when crafting strategies and campaigns.

 

[10:30.130] - Daniel Wiener

The media landscape is constantly evolving. There are advancements in data analytics and AI, making personalization and customization much easier to enact and bring into strategy. But at the same time, we have to remind ourselves that our main goal as marketers is to be storytellers, so it's important to sometimes prioritize, ignore the noise or hype and find that balance by integrating new technologies while also keeping your eye on the ball and delivering the right story that's going to grow your brand.

 

[11:00.620] - Mark Lapidus

Talk to me a bit about how you work with DMOs.

 

[11:03.110] - Daniel Wiener

Yeah, so we've been working with DMOS for quite a while. We have a full funnel advertising solution offering, and outside of that, we work together with a lot of our DMO partners utilizing our data, a lot of which we just spoke about. But DMOs have a number of different goals that we commonly hear, one of which is driving awareness and consideration, and then the other is really putting heads in beds. Lower funnel performance marketing that achieves a high ROI. We have a number of different placements on our site that help our partners achieve this that fit and mix really well within the search experience. And then we go out and really create awesome campaigns. Whether they're event activations, custom videos, influencer programs, landing pages and the like, we're there to really meet whichever goal the DMO is looking to hit from a KPI standpoint.

 

[11:50.170] - Mark Lapidus

Before we go, you've got a lot of fun stuff on your website, and one of the things I want to ask you about is a page titled Travel Myths Dispelled. And so of course my wife always says, "Shouldn't we buy airfare on Tuesday night?" And now, having read that page, I can answer her that the answer is no. It doesn't seem to matter. Can you dispel a few more for me?

 

[12:11.770] - Matt Clarke

Debunking travel myths is one of our favorite things to do here at KAYAK. KAYAK is a very data-driven organization. We love giving people just the facts and letting them make the decisions on what's right for them to book. So to your point, booking on Tuesdays. At one point in time, that very much was true, based on when airlines would release their schedules. But so much has changed, and so much is algorithmically-driven at this point, that "booking on Tuesday" myth is, in fact, a myth. The other one that we hear a lot all the time is, "Should I clear my cookies? They're tracking me, they're going to raise the prices." We have no evidence on that one at all. Airlines very much would just love to throw their inventory.

 

[12:48.720] - Mark Lapidus

Finally, someone isn't tracking me.

 

[12:51.140] - Matt Clarke

Someone isn't tracking you. Prices go up, prices go down. We can see how people might think that sometimes, but no evidence that that's happening. And in lockstep with that, searching for a flight multiple times, "That's going to make the price go up because they think that I'm going to book." That one's not true either. We don't have any evidence on that one. So plenty of travel myths out there. We'd encourage you to follow us, actually, on Instagram, where we dispel a lot of these, and we actually have a lot of holiday content coming up soon. For example, most people assume with the holidays you see a ton of delays. And that can be true with bad weather, and we certainly don't want to guarantee anybody getting from point A to point B on time on the holidays, but actually flying on holidays themselves are some of the least disrupted travel days of the year. So plenty of them are out there, part of the fun is debunking them.

 

[13:35.830] - Mark Lapidus

I've flown a few times on Christmas. It's great, the plane is empty.

 

[13:38.930] - Matt Clarke

The plane is empty, the airport is empty. As long as you're willing to be a little bit late for dinner, you can get some good deals and avoid some delays, potentially.

 

[13:46.340] - Mark Lapidus

There's a ton of different sites where people can book travel, but when do people decide to use KAYAK and why?

 

[13:51.940] - Matt Clarke

Great question. I think it's all throughout the journey, but really it's at the point where you have a good idea on where you're headed, and you're really focused in on, "Where can I get the best price, where can I see the most options, how can I see everything side by side?" So we have wonderful business partners and suppliers, both on airlines, hotel, car rental agencies, the OTAs, and they all do a phenomenal job, and we have content across the board. And what we're able to do, when you're ready to make that purchase, you get to see, right next to one another: here's a flight, here's maybe an online travel agency, what's right for me and what's the best price and what's most convenient. So, comparison shopping. Travel is expensive; people always want to make sure they're getting the best deal. We talked about those 30-odd sites that people will spend their time researching, and we like to say you don't need 30, you could probably just use KAYAK, but we're on the journey to make sure that everybody knows that. So when you're ready to compare the options and make a booking, KAYAK's with you.

 

[14:43.550] - Mark Lapidus

This conversation has really been a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining me, Matt and Daniel.

 

[14:47.330] - Matt Clarke

This has been great. Thank you, Mark.

 

[14:48.730] - Daniel Wiener

Thank you so much, Mark. We loved it.

 

[14:50.450] - Mark Lapidus

And that's it for Brand USA Talks Travel for today. I'm Mark Lapidus, thanks for listening.

 

[14:55.460] - Intro/Outro

Your feedback is welcome. Email us at [email protected] or call 202-793-6256. Brand USA Talks Travel is produced by Asher Meerovich, who also composes music and sound. Media producer, Nthanze Kariuki, with assistance from Casey D'Ambra. Engineering, Brian Watkins, Kat Pommer, and Antonio Tyler. Art by Mimi Jung. Please share this podcast with your friends in the travel industry. You may also enjoy many of our archived episodes, which you can find on your favorite podcast platform. Safe Travels!

 

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In this Episode:
Daniel Wiener - KAYAK's Senior Director of Ad Sales and Data Partnerships
Daniel Wiener
KAYAK's Senior Director of Ad Sales and Data Partnerships

Matt Clarke is Vice President of North America Marketing
Matt Clarke
KAYAK's Vice President of North America Marketing

Host, Brand USA Talks Travel Podcast; Vice President, Content & Marketing Technology
Mark Lapidus
Host, Brand USA Talks Travel Podcast; Vice President, Content & Marketing Technology