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Travel & Tourism Technology Trends

Trip Planning Site TravelMuse.com an Open Web Award NomineeYesterday

I mentioned in my previous post that TripIt and Yapta, who both won the emerging category innovator awards at the PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit, were also nominated for the Open Web Awards in the Travel Category.  Another innovator TravelMuse.com is the only trip planning site from the Travel Innovation Awards to also be nominated in the awards.  This is a particularly satisfying nomination because I think it speaks to the quality experience that Travelmuse is promoting on their site and some of the really interesting innovations they are rolling out on their site.

The trip planning mechanism is very new on the TravelMuse site and, from my understanding, the team at TravelMuse is going to be spending a lot of time and energy on innovating the features.  I look forward to seeing what happens over the next few months and wish them all the best in the Open Web Awards.

If you would like to vote for TravelMuse, use the widget in the right side bar.  Note that the widget will be availab

Mashable’s Open Web Awards Feature Two PhoCusWright InnovatorsYesterday

The round one voting for Mashable’s Open Web Awards were just released today at 12:00 EST and I’m really pleased to announce that the two winners of the emerging category from Monday’s Travel Innovation Summit at PhoCusWright 2008 are also features in the Open Web Awards.  There is a lot of buzz around what TripIt and Yapta are doing in their respective spaces and I wish them both the best in both the Center stage presentations as well as the Open Web Awards.  It’s great to see some really innovative travel companies get featured both at a travel industry conference and for the general Internet community.

You can vote for either (or both) by using the Open Web Awards widget.  Note that closing of first round voting is November 30th, 2008, so get your votes in early!

TripIt Alexa Details

Yapta Alexa Details

PhoCusWright Travel Innovator: UptakeNovember 18

Uptake is travel search engine that is about activities, things to do and lodging for destinations. The system aggregates review data and combines it into a consolidated sourcefor travel information.  The site is completely engine agnostic and pushes leads to the site that customer prefers.

The number one reason why Google search became the premier search is because they put all the information out infront the user.  Uptake is using the same model even it means losing some leads to direct to supplier bookings.  Uptakes primary revenue source is as a lead generator.

There are some very interesting opportunities for suppliers to take advantage of a product like Uptake because it means that small suppliers can have an impact on the buying process by listing themselves in the engine.  The idea is that eventually Uptake will become the site of choice of all these products.

The Uptake site is only available for the U.S. for now but there is talk about expanding into the Canadian market.  This seems to be a natural extension and will serve the North American market well.

PhoCusWright Travel Innovator: TriporatiNovember 18

Triportati is a combination of a trip planning tool and a recommendation engine.  Triporati uses professional authors to set 62 attributes to over 1200 destinations world wide.  The idea is that these 62 attributes become the DNA for vacations.  Along with these attributes, Triporati combines the destinations with appropriate attractions and activities.  The effect being that when a traveler does a search for a specific type of activity, the system can make recommendations on destinations that match their criteria as opposed to forcing the traveler to choose a destination from a list.

The site has a combination of mapping as well as ajax and other features that combine to narrow down the search results to a top 5 type list.  This means that if a traveler likes a particular destination, the system can actually recommend similar destinations based on the DNA and how closely the destination matches the traveler’s profile as far as desired activity choices.

At the time of posting, Triporati was one the top 6 demonstrators and will be presenting their 5 minutes of fame at the center stage on Wednesday.

Questions:

1. There are thousands of tours, activities, and attractions

PhoCusWright Travel Innovator: TripItNovember 15

TripIt is undoubtedly one of the highest profile innovators presenting at PhoCusWright.  TripIt has received alot of press over the last year or so having been featured on TechCrunch and the Webby’s.  TripIt has also received a fair amount of investment, most recently $5.1 Million in April 2008.  Needless to say, it is much easier to be innovative when you have a healthy R&D budget.

The beauty of TripIt is its simplicity.  Unlike its trip organizing competitors like TripChill, TripIt is very simple in its approach.  The site is simple, the interface is clean and uncluttered, and the process of organizing itineraries is also simple.  But don’t mistake simple for easy, there is some powerful programming underlying that very simple interface.

Here are three demo videos from the TripIt website that explain the application in detail:

To view additional videos about what happens after you add a booking to your itinerary, visit the demo video page on the TripIt website.