Kayak (styled as KAYAK) is a metasearch engine for travel services, including airline flights, hotels, rental cars, and vacation packages. It is owned and operated by Booking Holdings. Kayak's website and mobile apps are currently available in about 20 languages and 30 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, India, China, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Russia, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Australia, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Belgium, Korea, Japan, and Singapore.

History

Kayak was founded in January 2004 by Steve Hafner and Paul M. English. Before Kayak, Steve Hafner, Kayak's current CEO, helped found Orbitz in November 1999 and led its business development, advertising sales, marketing, and product marketing activities. The company was originally named Travel Search Company, Inc. and the name was changed to Kayak Software Corporation in August 2004. The website launched in February 2005. In December 2007, Kayak raised $196 million in financing from a group of investors including General Catalyst,

Sequoia Capital Sequoia Capital Operations, LLC is an American venture capital firm headquartered in Menlo Park, California, specializing in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. the firm had appro ...

, Accel Partners, and Oak Investment Partners. Using that funding, Kayak acquired SideStep, another online travel agency. On March 5, 2010, Kayak sold certain assets related to

TravelPost TravelPost was founded in February 2004 by Sam Shank, a graduate scholar of the Kellogg School of Management. It was initially launched as a travel blogging site, where users could register and set up their own blog area, which acted as an onli ...

. In May 2010, Kayak acquired German travel search platform Swoodoo. In January 2011, Kayak shut down SideStep and redirected SideStep traffic to Kayak.com. In April 2011, Kayak acquired all of the outstanding shares of JaBo Vertrieb-und Entwicklung GmbH, or JaBo Software, operator Checkfelix, a travel search engine in

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

. On July 20, 2012, Kayak became a

public company A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of share capital, stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter (finance), over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) co ...

via an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investm ...

. On its first day of trading on the

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market (; National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the U.S. by volume, and ranked second on the list ...

stock exchange under the symbol KYAK, Kayak opened at $26 per share and closed at $33.18 per share. On May 21, 2013, Booking Holdings, then known as Priceline.com, acquired the company for $2.1 billion. In September 2013, Kayak announced an office move to the Harbor Point district of Stamford, aided by a $2.5 million loan from the state of

Connecticut Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. ...

. In 2017, the company acquired Mundi, a Brazilian flight metasearch company. In 2018, Kayak assumed leadership of Hotels Combined, which was acquired by parent company, Booking Holdings. In 2024, Kayak added fares from

Southwest Airlines Southwest Airlines Co., or simply Southwest, is a Major airlines of the United States, major airline in the United States that formerly operated on a low-cost carrier model. It is headquartered in the Love Field, Dallas, Love Field neighborhood ...

to its listings.

Awards

In 2013, '' Travel + Leisure'' included Kayak's app in its list of the Best Apps for Business Travelers as well as its list for the Best Apps for websites and travelers. ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' named Kayak on its list of the 50 Best Websites of 2009.

Mashable Mashable is a Online newspaper, news website, digital media platform and entertainment company founded by Pete Cashmore in 2005. History Mashable was founded by Pete Cashmore while living in Aberdeen, Scotland, in July 2004. Early iterations o ...

included Kayak in first place for the website's list, "10 Budget Airfare Tools Every Traveler Should Know in 2012". Kayak won the following

Webby Award The Webby Awards (colloquially referred to as the Webbys) are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over three thousand industry experts a ...

s: * 2008: People's Voice award in the travel website category * 2009: The Webby Award in the travel website category * 2011: The People's Voice award in the mobile travel app category in 2011 * 2012: 3 awards: both the Webby and People's Choice awards in the travel website category, and the People's Voice award in the mobile travel app category. * 2013: Nominee for Best Travel Mobile & App for Handheld Devices * 2014: both the People's Voice and Webby Award in the Travel category for Tablets. * 2015, Kayak Mobile won again the People's Voice Award in the Travel category. The World Travel Awards presented Kayak with the World's Leading Flight Comparison Website award in 2013 and the World's Leading Travel Search Website award in 2011.

''All-American Muslim'' advertising

In December 2011, Kayak announced that it would not renew a contract to advertise on the

TLC TLC may refer to: Arts and entertainment Television * ''TLC'' (TV series), a 2002 British situational comedy television series that aired on BBC2 * TLC (TV network), formerly the Learning Channel, an American cable TV network ** TLC (Asia), an A ...

reality television show '' All-American Muslim''. The decision followed a campaign by the Florida Family Association, a one-man fundamentalist organization focused on “defending American values". In a statement posted to the Kayak website, Kayak Chief Marketing Officer, Robert Birge, wrote that TLC “was not upfront with us about the nature of the show”.

References

External links

* {{Authority control 2012 initial public offerings 2013 mergers and acquisitions American companies established in 2004 American travel websites Booking Holdings Companies based in Stamford, Connecticut Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq Concord, Massachusetts Internet properties established in 2004 IOS software Metasearch engines Online travel agencies Transport companies established in 2004 Travel ticket search engines Webby Award winners