Skift Take
The American Express GBTs of the world won't lose sleep over this. But Kayak's effort should be a wake-up call to the sector. Technologies like blockchain may be seeding more competition at last.
Kayak, the travel price-comparison service, on Tuesday debuted a corporate travel service for large companies.
Kayak's move does not reflect a major strategy shift. Yet the relative ease at which the consumer business created a corporate travel offering suggests that long-hyped concepts like blockchain may be leveling the playing field in a sector dominated by a handful of large players.
The product originated when PwC came to Kayak looking for help managing its corporate travel program.
Kayak provided its user interface and its supply — with more than 2,000 supplier connections. It teamed with Blockskye, a startup that provides distributed ledger technology for back-end services, especially connecting data for booking, payment, expense, authorization, and settlement.
PwC employees have now, for a few months, been booking some business trips using Kayak. When searching, they only see results from PwC-approved hotels and airlines and fare types, such as economy class. If a flight is canceled, a road warrior can rebook it, and all records wil