VibeAgent, a hotel information aggregator, has closed a $3 million Series A funding round led by a number of individual investors. We originally covered VibeAgent in July 2007, when it was focused on compiling user-submitted hotel reviews with an integrated social network (we dubbed it a ‘TripAdvisor 2.0′ at the time). Since then the site has shifted gears, and is now a hotel meta search engine, offering a service similar to Kayak and a plethora of other sites.
CEO Adam Healey says that the site differentiates itself from Kayak by offering a more comprehensive hotel search, combing through 140,000 hotels across 30 different travel sites. VibeAgent is affiliated with nearly every source of hotel data that Kayak uses (the notable exception is Orbitz), and has also partnered with a number of niche agencies that cater to specific markets (for example, the site has one partner focused on Asian markets, while another focuses on luxury hotels). The site also features a “Hotelier Suite” that allows hotels to manually add or edit their information in the VibeAgent database. VibeAgent’s user-submitted hotel reviews live on, but they are no longer the site’s main focus.
VibeAgent may be able to set itself apart from other travel search engines by focusing exclusively on hotels, but it will likely need another differentiator - users may forgo VibeAgent’s more exhaustive search in favor of a site that lets them book their hotels and airfare. Perhaps it should consider allying with TripKick, a unique hotel site that offers reviews down to individual rooms.
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I admire companies that look at an overly saturated market and say, “Us too!”
[stops] Herman, how could you? We’ve all thought about
counterfeiting jeans at one time or another, but what about the
victims? Hard-working designers like Calvin Klein, Gloria
Vanderbilt, or Antoine Bugle Boy. _These_ are the people who
saw an overcrowded marketplace and said, “Me too!”
They should have spent some of that financing on a better name.
Yeah. They should have bought tinycomb.com instead.
Aren’t people cutting back on discretionary spending, such as traveling?
yeah. totally. good comment.
I agree, the name is a bit too bland to be memorable.
How they thought up that silly name, I have no idea. But, to their credit, I have consistently found better hotel rates on vibeagent than on orbitz, mobissimo, kayak (usually) and the like … esp. in Europe. So they’re clearly bringing some magic potion to the table, crowded or not. cheers to anyone who is managing to raise money & build a co. in this market
What’s VibeAgent’s action plan to drive traffic to their site and gain a loyal user base? I would assume it would be difficult to gain and switch the critical mass of LOYAL Kayak users. Isn’t this why they canned their focus hotel reviews? Couldn’t get users from TripAdvisor?
I just don’t see this as a sustainable business given their GIANT competitors…especially in this economy.
Hotel search is definitely a crowded market, but like Greg mentioned above, I find that I am still getting different prices for hotels by going to different travel sites (mobissimo, hotelscombined, etc.)
As for whether people are cutting back on discretionary spending - I was at a travel event recently for tour operators where the sentiment was that travel bookings have definitely been effected - yet, in our own survey of about 570 travellers on GeckoGo.com, we found that, while people felt pretty down about the economy, they weren’t planning to change their travel plans. They were still going to see their relatives and go on vacations, but would seek out more deals, book farther in advance, and consider alternate methods of travel. So changes for sure, but people are still out to see the world.
@MS - I think people said the same thing about Google vis-a-vis Yahoo, Excite and Lycos when they launched in the “crowded” search market ten years ago…
@ gregor: Yes, but Google’s advertising model was fundamentally different than Yahoo, etc. There’s nothing fundamentally different about VibeAgent. They’re scraping traffic from the same sites as everyone else (Travelsearch, BookingBuddy, etc.). What’s different about that?
I think their mapping area utility is pretty nifty for finding hotels. Kayak seems to be more flight oriented, so if they can out-Kayak Kayak in the hotel space they could be successful. But I agree with others on the name - they really need a new name that actually makes sense. Their logo looks very generic.
Snooze. A review of Hong Kong hotels indicates that they scrape the same sites that everyone else already scrapes. Nice visual map interface gadget, but not useful enough to make me abandon my existing tools.
Is tinycomb for sale?
I love VibeAgent - they always have better rates than Expedia!