Fifteen
years after its launch as one of the first consumer travel metasearch
solutions, Kayak is expanding into corporate travel with the launch of Kayak
for Business.
Beginning
today, companies can request to join a waitlist. Kayak will choose a few to use
the product in pre-beta, with the full beta launching publicly later this month.
The
free tool will function as a meta-engine, showing employees comprehensive options
for flights and hotels, with car rentals to be added in the future.
Corporate
clients load their travel policies and preferred approval flow into the system,
so as employees search they can see which options fall within that policy.
Kayak
says it expects the system to appeal to small- and mid-size businesses and
startups. But unlike other travel management solutions targeted to this sector,
such as Lola, TravelPerk, TripActions and TravelBank, Kayak says initially it
will not offer support from human agents.
“This
is a big reason that our service is free. Our users can rely on existing
customer service options, including supplier direct, online travel agencies or
even their corporate travel agency if they have one. In the future, we plan to add ways for travelers
to opt-in for concierge-level or partner-specific customer service when they
need it,” the company says in an email.
Kayak
says more details about the concierge services will be released later this month,
but it did not respond to a question of whether the platform provides tools related to duty of care.
The
company says the idea for Kayak for Business developed out of its own internal needs
to manage its employees’ travel.
The past year has seen a flurry of
activity in corporate travel. Lola partnered with American Express Global
Business Travel in November 2018 and in March raised $37 million. TravelPerk completed a $104 million Series C
round in July, and TripActions banked $250 million in June.
Companies in this
space have also regularly been adding new product features to entice clients - most recently TravelBank, which launched a three-in-one “SuperItinerary” tool in
September.
According to Phocuswright’s U.S.
Corporate Travel Report 2018-2022, managed travel represents a third of the
total travel market in the United States and will reach $138 billion by 2022,
with 86% of that spending taking place online.
In mid-October Kayak announced a partnership with Wanderu that adds flights to Wanderu's ground transportation search system.