Mobissimo Inc. officially launched its online travel search engine Tuesday and said it has added a new service that allows users to search for rental cars.
The site allows users to search for flights, hotels and rental cars. A test version was first made available to the public in March.
Competitors to the privately held, San Mateo, California-based company -- whose name means "the ultimate in mobility" in Italian -- include SideStep, Yahoo Inc.'s FareChase, as well as comparison shopping firm NexTag.
Elsewhere, Time Warner Inc. unit America Online last week said it made an investment in Kayak Software Corp., another travel search engine.
Travel search engines work like referral services, pointing users to where they can find bargains on the Web. The sites that get the business, in general, pay finders fees to the search companies.
They compete and sometimes partner with larger and more established Web travel service providers such as InterActiveCorp.'s Expedia, Orbitz Inc. and Sabre Holdings Corp.'s Travelocity.
Those companies are more like travel agents and aim to offer one-stop shopping by finding and selling hotel rooms, airplane tickets and rental cars.
