WebProNews

Bing Gets a Bunch of New Search Features

Update: According to Bing, all of the features that were announced are now live. However, they do not appear to be live yet for me. I am guessing they will be soon at least.

Yahoo7 Acquires Major Travel Site

The company that represents a 50-50 partnership between Yahoo and the Seven Network Limited, which is one of Australia's largest media groups, is on the move.  Yahoo7 acquired Totaltravel.com for perhaps about $17 million.

Online Media Influencing Travel Decisions

Less than half (39%) of Americans are using online media to research their choice of travel services, according to a new report from Ad-ology Research. Hotel websites were found to have the most influence on consumers while online content also influenced 34 percent to visit local attractions like amusement parks, zoos, and concerts.

Have Bing, Will Travel

Today Microsoft launched a new Bing feature for travel, appropriately called Bing Travel. Microsoft says that 45% of people use a search engine to select a flight or hotel. This is the main inspiration for Bing Travel. Bing Travel conducted a survey recently that found 52% of potential travelers search three or more sites before booking their airfare. 42% of travelers spend between one and four weeks weighing their travel options, and 17% spend over a month.

Priceline Offers Price Guarantees With New Promotion

Priceline has announced it is offering price guarantees for all of its airline tickets and vacation packages as part of a spring travel promotion for all bookings made through June 1. Recently a number of other online travel agencies have offered similar promotions including Orbitz and Expedia's Hotwire.com.

TripAdvisor Flys Into Flight Search

Online travel review site TripAdvisor has launched a new flight search engine aimed at providing travelers with information on airline ticket prices, fees for checked baggage and other services. TripAdvisor says its search engine provides more flight choices in its search results along with direct booking links to major travel companies including Expedia, Travelocity, Hotwire, and nearly every U.S. airline.

Travelzoo Talks $1.8 Million Acquisition of Fly.com Domain

Last Friday, travel site Travelzoo announced that it had purchased the domain Fly.com for $1.8 million. Not a lot of details were released about the transaction, so I contacted Travelzoo to find out a bit more.  Mindy Joyce, Travelzoo's senior marketing director got back to me and answered a few questions.

Expedia Gets to Know NFL Fans

In the spirit of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, travel site Expedia has released some data from a a recent survey regarding football fans (football of course, being a staple of the holiday).

33,000 Clear Travelers Information Compromised

A TSA Laptop containing names, social security numbers, passport numbers, and a host of other personal information has been stolen out of a locked cabinet at the San Francisco Airport, and no the hard drive was not encrypted. There is no notification of the breach at the flyclear.com site, nor has anything been reported on the breech blog or on the attrition.org data loss site on this issue yet.

CondeNet Buys SFO Media

CondeNet, the Internet unit of Conde Nast publications, has just acquired SFO Media, the publisher of HotelChatter.com and Jaunted.com, and believe it or not, CondeNet appears to have a good sense of timing.