Kayak targets TripAdvisor market with TravelPost overhaul

Kayak is hoping to turn review portal TravelPost into a major rival to TripAdvisor after acquiring the site through its takeover of Sidestep. Travolution has learned the US meta search engine will incorporate all TravelPost hotel reviews onto the Kayak hotel channels in the coming weeks ahead of a major upgrade of back-end and user-facing…

Kayak is hoping to turn review portal TravelPost into a major rival to TripAdvisor after acquiring the site through its takeover of Sidestep.

Travolution has learned the US meta search engine will incorporate all TravelPost hotel reviews onto the Kayak hotel channels in the coming weeks ahead of a major upgrade of back-end and user-facing functionality.

Kayak officials confirmed TravelPost will shortly move from a Microsoft-based language to the full Java-led system currently used on the main Kayak site.

Travel search site Sidestep bought Travelpost in 2006 as part of plans to aggregate user reviews into its own hotel channel.

A Kayak spokeswoman confirmed major developments are now underway for TravelPost.

“Kayak engineers will start enhancing the site and turn TravelPost into the best hotel review site on the web,” she added.

“The PR/marketing team will make TravelPost a household name. We are really excited about this project.”