Microsoft has introduced its new Bing search engine with a tightly integrated new travel feature called Bing Travel.
The move combines Microsoft's Farecast unit, acquired in April 2008, with MSN Travel. Bing Travel can be found at www.bing.com/travel.
The introduction of Bing is intended to improve on Microsoft's perennial third-place finish in the search engine/online advertising market behind No. 1 Google and No. 2 Yahoo.
Bing gives travel elevated status as one of only six categories or industry verticals with a presence on its home page, www.bing.com.
Farecast's founder, Hugh Crean, becomes the general manager of Bing Travel and its staff of 40. He reports to Brian MacDonald, Microsoft's vice president for search.
Crean sees the change as bringing travel to the fore within Microsoft.
"Now we are part of an overall search strategy that will be in front of all consumers, coming through Bing and Bing Travel," Crean said.
Farecast, a metasearch engine, powers Bing Travel's flight and hotel searches, while Orbitz offers inventory for vacation packages, cars and cruises.
Out with the old
Under the former MSN Travel brand, Farecast provided flight search, while Orbitz powered hotels, vacation packages, cars and cruises.
Consumers who visit travel.msn.com and Farecast.com are being redirected to Bing Travel.
Although the MSN Travel brand will disappear, Bing Travel's predictive data about fare and room-rate trends will still carry Farecast branding within Bing Travel.
The service is designed to make it easy for consumers to retrieve travel-related data. For example, when consumers enter "ORD to LAX" in the Bing.com search box, they can view an "instant answer" on flights from Chicago O'Hare to Los Angeles from Bing Travel, appearing right below advertisements on the top of the page.
The instant answer provides links to Bing Travel, where users can view information about fare trends on that route, and conduct two types of flight searches, which involve two business models.
Consumers can comparison-shop for flights using metasearch, in which the flight choices appear in a grid. In metasearch, Bing Travel receives referral fees from suppliers or online travel agencies when consumers navigate to these source sites to make bookings.
The second business model, which might be called facilitated search, is more lucrative than metasearch for Bing Travel, according to Crean. In facilitated search, consumers can opt to open search engines from companies such as Hotwire, Expedia and Price-line in separate windows, and Bing Travel receives advertising fees on a cost-per-click basis for these searches.