January 24, 2005

Update to the Hotel Comparison: NexTag

Several fine folks at NexTag informed me that they are not exactly chopped liver when it comes to travel search. Indeed, although it is probably too late for an "apples vs. apples" pricing comparison, an initial search of hotels at NexTag returned 22 of the 30 targetted Las Vegas hotels, and I did even better -- 28 hotels -- in a subsequent search. (Apparently, Vegas.com was not included as a source in the initial search). Score one for the all-around shopping engines. I'll be sure to include NexTag in the upcoming airfare shootout.

One neat thing about NexTag is how they cluster results while maintaining transparency. In other words, they only show one listing per hotel on the main search results page, which keeps things uncluttered. Yet, they display prices from several providers at the bottom of each listing, if applicable, and a one-off page displays details from all providers. Compare that to other travel search engines such as Mobissimo, which does not cluster, and SideStep, which uses "blind" re-directs, and NexTag might be on to something here, at least in terms of price comparison.

Update to the Hotel Comparison: NexTag
Posted by Sean O'Rourke on January 24, 2005 at 8:00 PM
Archived at NexTag | Travel