Skyscanner

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Skyscanner.net
250px
Web address www.skyscanner.net www.skyscanner.com (U.S.)
Type of site
 Travel Search Engine
Registration No
Owner Skyscanner Ltd

Skyscanner is a global search engine that enables people to find comparisons for flights, hotels and car hire. The service is free to users and directs you to the airline, hotel, car hire provider or travel agency to complete the booking process.

The site is multilingual, offering flight searches in over 30 languages[1] including Chinese, Russian, Portuguese, Polish, Spanish and Japanese.

Skyscanner does not sell flights directly; instead, the site can be used to find the cheapest deal for a desired route after which users are automatically transferred to the airline or travel supplier’s website to make their booking directly.

In addition to its flight search engine technology, Skyscanner also features regular news items from the travel and flight industry as well as travel tips for consumers.[2]

In 2011, Skyscanner worked with an Edinburgh based Mobile Application Development company called Kotikan to release their first mobile application. In just 6 days their ‘all flights everywhere’ iPhone app received over 100,000 downloads[3] and by March 2013, the Skyscanner mobile application had been downloaded over 20 million times.[4]

The company is headquartered in the United Kingdom with offices in Edinburgh and Glasgow, as well as Singapore, Beijing, Miami, and Barcelona, following Skyscanner's 2013 acquisition of Spanish hotel comparison firm, Fogg.[5][6][7]

History

The company was formed in 2001 by three IT professionals, Gareth Williams, Barry Smith and Bonamy Grimes, after one of them was frustrated by the difficulties of finding cheap flights to ski resorts.[8]

Skyscanner version 1 was developed and released in 2002. In 2003, the first employee was taken on to assist with site development. In 2004 the Edinburgh office was opened and by 2013 the company employed over 180 staff.[9][10]

The site began life listing European budget airlines only, but has since expanded its search index to include most major European carriers, including BA, KLM and Virgin Atlantic Airways. It has also expanded its geographical reach to include carriers to, from and in the US, Canada, Asia and other parts of the world.

In 2011, Skyscanner acquired the door-to-door travel site Zoombu for an undisclosed sum.[11]

In September 2011, Skyscanner opened an office in Singapore from where it headquarters its Asia-Pacific operations.[12] In 2012 a Beijing office was opened and Skyscanner began a partnership with China's largest search engine Baidu.[13] In February 2013, Skyscanner announced plans to open a US base in Miami[14]

In October 2013, Sequoia Capital announced it had taken a stake in British travel search engine Skyscanner that values it at $800 million.[15]

In June 2014, Skyscanner acquired the Chinese travel search engine company, Youbibi, based in Shenzen, China.[16]

In August 2014, a market research study found that, in comparison to other travel websites, Skyscanner tended to have more users aged 16–34. The same study found that 64% of those who have used Skyscanner trust the platform.[17]

In October 2014, Skyscanner acquired the Budapest-based Mobile App Developer Distinction.[18]

In January 2016, Skyscanner announced that it has raised $192 million for international expansion. [19]

Skyscanner tools (Skytools)

Skyscanner offers a suite of free online tools, collectively called 'Skytools' that allow users and webmasters to download and integrate Skyscanner flight information into their own website, personal page or desktop. These come in the form of a 'Flight Map' API (an interactive flash map displaying airports on a world map), a 'WhoFlies' API, which displays airlines for any given route and a 'Flight Search' API which gives live prices.[20]

Market share and popularity

Skyscanner currently receives over 35 million visitors per month and has an annual turnover of £93 million.[21] Skyscanner has won various awards including a Queen's Award for Enterprise, Travolution Brand of the Year 2011[22] and Best Flight Comparison 2010 from Travolution.[23]

The site has been well received by the UK media; in an "Online Cheap Flight Finding Experiment" run by The Guardian newspaper, Skyscanner was praised for finding the lowest flight fares and for "beating much bigger operators such as Expedia and Travelocity".[24] The site was also listed in The Independent newspaper's articles - "The Ten Best: Travel Sites".[25] and "101 Really Useful Websites".[26] The Daily Telegraph named Skyscanner as one of the 9 best travel websites.[27]

The market has expanded and many other companies provide similar services (either competing or collaborating) like Kayak.com, Dohop,[28] Travelocity, JetRadar, Orbitz, CheapOair, Mobissimo.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ Skyscanner News and Tips
  3. ↑ http://www.skyscanner.net/news/skyscanner-iphone-app-hits-100k-downloads-just-6-days
  4. ↑ http://www.skyscanner.net/news/skyscanner-marks-mobile-success-20m-app-downloads
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ http://www.standard.co.uk/business/business-news/skyscanner-valued-at-800m-by-backer-of-apple-8855825.html
  16. ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-28014913
  17. ↑ http://www.ljresearch.co.uk/tripadvisor-tops-travel-brand-awareness-index/
  18. ↑ http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/22/travel-search-company-skyscanner-acquires-budapest-based-mobile-app-developer-distinction/
  19. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. ↑ Skyscanner Skytools
  21. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  22. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  23. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  24. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  25. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  26. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  27. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  28. ↑ http://www.dohop.com/ Dohop

External links

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