Kayak.com, the largest Travel 2.0 site in the world, today broadened its executive bench with two senior appointments, and also announced the beta launch of its Italian site, www.kayak.it. Brian Harniman, former CEO of Openlist and VP of Marketing for Priceline, joins Kayak.com as Executive Vice President of Marketing and Distribution. Karen Klein, who previously served as Group Vice President, Legal for Orbitz Worldwide, Inc, joins Kayak.com in the role of General Counsel.

Based in Kayak.com’s worldwide headquarters in Norwalk, Conn., Harniman will be responsible for continuing to build Kayak.com’s awareness among consumers. In addition, Harniman will help launch and oversee the newly developed Kayak Publishing Network (KPN). KPN is a vertical ad network that syndicates targeted text-based ads on search result pages for travel e-commerce sites. The Kayak Publishing Network uses inventory from Kayak.com’s patent-pending paid search solution, enabling travel marketers to target their advertising based on search parameters including city or city pairs, trip dates, length of stay, and specific airline or hotel brands. There are more than 30,000 active placements through this system from more than 2,000 travel brands.

“Kayak.com advertisers report conversion rates on targeted text-based ads that are up to six times higher than generic paid search. Launching our own ad network is the next logical step in our company’s evolution,” added Hafner. “By syndicating these ads across other high-quality travel e-commerce sites, our advertisers will gain more qualified traffic, and Kayak Publishing Network partners will significantly increase the monetization of their sites.”

Harniman previously was CEO of Openlist, the web’s premier vertical search and discovery engine. In this role he led the turnaround and sale of the company to Marchex, a publicly traded company. Prior to this role, Harniman spent eight years at Priceline. Among other positions, he was Vice President of Marketing where he managed Priceline’s marketing efforts, affiliate channel development and advertising sales.

Ciao l’Italia

About Kayak.com
Kayak.com is a global Internet media company focusing on the travel industry, and operates Kayak.com, Sidestep.com, TravelPost.com and TravelSearch.com. Kayak.com and SideStep.com display results from more than 400 travel sites, providing prices and itineraries for hundreds of airlines, more than 100,000 hotels, all leading rental car companies and 18 cruise lines. Kayak.com has won more awards since launch than any other travel site including “100 Best Products of 2007” by PC World; “25 Sites We Can’t Live Without” by TIME Magazine; “Best Search Engine” by the Associated Press; and “Best of the Web” by BusinessWeek, Forbes.com and US News & World Report. Launched in 2005 by co-founders of Orbitz, Travelocity and Expedia, Kayak.com’s investors include General Catalyst Partners, Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, Trident Capital, Oak Investment Partners, Lehman Brothers Venture Partners and America Online, Inc. Kayak.com has sites in the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy. For more information, visit www.Kayak.com.