kinkaa est un meta-moteur de recherche des meilleures offres de voyages.

Lancé en Allemagne il y a seulement quelques mois, il est déjà devenu le leader des meta-moteurs de voyages sur le marché allemand.

Avec des projet de développement en France et en Europe, kinkaa tisse rapidement sa toile de recherche sur le Net.

Claus Weber, Managing Director Europe nous en dit plus sur kinkaa et son fonctionnement.

Cet interview me confirme aussi une intuition que j'ai depuis des mois : les DMO's et autres CDT, Office de Tourisme et institutionnels équipés de réservation en ligne, sont des partenaires potentiels de kinkaa et des méta-moteurs de recherches de voyages.

2007 devrait voir pas mal de belles opérations marketing ! SideStep à déjà fait des opérations avec des DMO's !

>> Claus, can you tell some information about you and the other kinkaa founder?

kinkaa was founded by Torsten Jacobi in September 2006. Torsten is a serial entrepreneur on both sides of the Atlantic - co-founder of Newtron AG (Hamburg), co-founder of First Tuesday Saxony (Leipzig), founder of Creative Weblogging Limited (Palo Alto, CA) I joint the company in January 2007. I have an experience of nine years in the travel industry with AVIGO, DERTOUR and REWE Touristik. I am online marketing expert with an in-depth knowledge of the online travel market and internet booking technology.

>> You manage the european operation for Kinkaa. Can you tell us the story and some fact about Kinkaa?

kinkaa is a Meta Travel Search Engine for all relevant travel categories (flights, hotels, cars, packages/last minute) Other categories will follow.

kinkaa is headquartered in Hamburg, Germany with development offices in Palo Alto, CA.
kinkaa currently provides its service exclusively in Germany right now but plans to expand to other European countries in 2007 (France, Spain, Italy) kinkaa is unique as it aggregates travel related information from hundreds of sources in Europe making it a prime destination for consumers.

We are already the market leader for Germany with more than 180 integrated travel websites.

>> Can you give us some outline about your goals with Kinkaa!

kinkaa is going to be the "Google for travel". Our goal is to search at least 90% of the bookable travel content in the specific country we are targeting. With more than 180 websites for Germany, we already have a broad range of travel providers. Right now, we are still integrating more partners and evaluating other products like Holiday
Cottages and Apartments to be added to our portfolio.



from left : Torsten Jacobi (Kinkaa CEO) and Claus Weber (Managing Director Europe)

>> Who use Kinkaa ? Any special profile and country for Kinkaa users?

Everybody uses kinkaa!

No, seriously - every internet user who is interested in travel is a potential kinkaa user, who either wants to book online, get a market overview or just gather nformation on destinations.

On kinkaa you will find it!

>> Internet is going faster and we talk now about Web 2.0 and Travel 2.0. What do you think about this evolution in the tourism & hotel market place ?
Word-of-mouth marketing and User Generated Content are the big trends for Travel 2.0 ?

I personally do not like buzz words like web 2.0. Looking at the incredients of a typical web 2.0 website, we actually have integrated a lot of the features you are mentioning. We use AJAX technology and open source software, we integrate user generated content and Google applications. If this qualifies for web 2.0 - yes we are!

Travel 2.0 - the evolution of the market place has two sides. The customers on the one hand go through the evolution of mainly comsuming websites towards communicating with each other and expressing themselves. Suddenly, websites like Trip Advisor or Virtual Tourist gain popularity.
On the the other hand we have the travel websites. We experience that there is always room for innovative ideas in the online travel value chain. The existence of meta search engines will enable the websites of the suppliers (airlines, hotels, tour operators etc) to a certain degree as they drive traffic directly to their sites. Sites like kinkaa however, are also a great marketing plattform for all other players (OTAs etc) in the online travel market place.

Concerning word of mouth marketing, I do not see the point. I think this has always been there, even without the Internet. As long as a product or service not only satisfies a customer but surprises in a positive way, the word will be spread. The difference is that it goes much faster because every user can be a "braodcaster" these days.

>> Do you plan to integrated Travel User Generated Content in the Kinkaa search engine as we see with SideStep?

Yes. We already provide links to several websites with user generated content like fotos from flickr, you tube videos, hotel ratings, travel blogs. We feel that this content fits our mission of being an independent, unbiased travel search engine and the users really appreciate that.

>> We see important impact of news technologies (RSS, AJAX, podcast, blog,socialnetworking tools, Google mashup,Vidéo etc), what is your point of view in the travel search area ?

Well, we make use of any technology and content that adds value to our search and to the customer experience. kinkaa is an AJAX applicationas I already said we have integrated links to blogs and videos etc, and we have our own corporate kinkaa blog where we post news on the travel industry and kinkaa as well as research, partner profiles and other interesting content.

>> What about your developpment and project. No more language for Kinkaa?

Oh sure, as we plan our expansion to other European countries, we are going to offer local products. This includes the language and local travel suppliers and products.



kinkaa blog, go to win a ipod !

>> Any advise for partners who want to work with Kinkaa?

Do not hesitate to contact us at mail@kinkaa.de

>> Can DMO's and Tourism Board could become Kinkaa Partners ? We see more and more Tourism board with booking engine, like Tiscover in Austria, Maison de la France in France, Switzerland, England, and more...

Yes, we are talking to some of them just now. They are interesting in two ways if they can offer unique content (bookable products or relevant edititorial content)

>> Any advises for people who start to use Kinkaa!

Just go to www.kinkaa.de and give it a try. For users who need assistence we offer a kinkaa walk though vodcast (video).

>> What are your taste for:

>> Travel:
Individual travel - relaxing hangouts - quality time with the family and sports like golf, snowboarding, hiking and mountainbiking

>> Travel destination:
Andalucia & Mallorca, Spain; Vancouver, Canada; San Francisco, CA and many more

>> Hotel :
Pula Suites, Son Servera - Spain

>> Business:
Business hotels you mean? I prefer small hotels with a personal touch or properties with a certain uniqueness. I like the SAS Radisson in Cologne e.g. for its interior design.

>> You have the micro

For your next travel need, pls. give it a try on www.kinkaa.de and feel free to send us feedback on how you like it.

Do not worry - there is going to be a french version soon ;-)

kinkaa - ton voyage

Merci Claus.

Si vous voulez suivre l'évolution de kinkaa, c'est sur Les Explorers et sur le blog de kinkaa (en allemand)