TravelMuse brings Web 2.0 functionality to the task of group travel planning.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)SAN DIEGO--One of the nice things about Web 2.0 is that the interactivity it promises can be applied to almost any kind of application.
That's the basis of TravelMuse's new social trip planning service, which it unveiled at DemoFall Tuesday.
The idea of the so-called Social Trip Planner is that a group of people expecting to travel together can use a rich Web site to plan and organize their vacation and share information about what they're doing amongst each other easily and automatically.
The service starts with what the company calls its "inspiration planner," which is designed to help a group traveling together--be it a family or several friends--figure out a destination that meets everyone's needs.
First, the group defines where they're beginning their trip and then specifies the number of people on the trip, how many hours they are willing to travel and how long they have for the trip. Then, they can choose tags from a long list of activities that each person wants to do.
At this point, the service produces a list of potential destinations that meet the criteria defined by the group.
This in and of itself is impressive, as anyone who has ever tried to put together a trip with a group would know.
But the service has many other features as well.
The first is a stored wish list, which the company says users could treat like Neflix's DVD queue. In other words, if the service gave you multiple trips that you'd like to go on, you can save the ones you don't choose for the future.
The social trip planner also allows users to find searched-for trips other people have created to see what else might be fun.
Then, based on the criteria a group has defined, the service offers up suggestions for hotels and other services at the destination, and as the group is putting its trip together, they can drag and drop those suggestions into the planner.
If things need to change after the planning has begun, you can swap out an entire day's activities for another by simply dragging and dropping, and everyone involved is automatically notified of the changes.
This seems like a valuable service, especially for families with kids who want to figure out a vacation alternative to Disneyland, but who don't really have any idea where they want to do. Because it offers vacationers the ability to pick and choose the activities they want from a large this, the service seems likely to be able to help people like this meet their needs.
If you can't make up your mind about where to go on vacation and are comfortable buying prepackaged vacation deals, there's a new site for you: TravelMuse. You tell it where you live, what your budget is, and what you like, and it will suggest destinations and hotels.
The idea could be a very positive contributor to domestic harmony. But how's the execution?
While the "Find Inspiration" feature of TravelMuse is smart and very Web 2.0-ish, the rest of the site has a somewhat retro business model. The content on TravelMuse is all professionally created. The site pays editors to write guides to major destinations, and then it encodes and tags them so the Inspiration function can find them.
TravelMuse finds vacation packages for you based on budget, timing, and what you're interested in.
In other words, there's no user-generated content on the site, in stark contrast to other popular travel advice sites like TripAdvisor. That's not a critical stopper, but if you're, say, a long-tail traveler--if you like mushroom hunting, maybe, or traveling to small towns without Marriotts--then TravelMuse can't help you, at least not yet. CEO Kevin Fliess says UGC (user-generated content) may be added in the future.
My other issue with the site is its focus on vacations by air. It is cool that TravelMuse finds trips for you based in part on how much time you're willing to spend in a plane, but if you're up for a road trip vacation (and with the price and indignity of air travel these days, it's a good option), again, TravelMuse isn't for you. And again, Fliess says it may be added later.
The results: air/hotel packages at destination for which TravelMuse has prewritten guides.
On the plus side are several creative features. The site lets you choose from several activities and trip styles when it goes looking for packages for you. You can surf through recommended activities and restaurants in your chosen location and add them to your itinerary. You can also use a bookmarklet to flag things you find on the Web as relevant to trips you're building.
There are also collaboration features, if you're working on a getaway with friends or family members. Another domestic-harmony win.
TravelMuse, at the moment, is really an online travel magazine with some strong customized content features. And it's early for the service--I'm writing this before the public launch. With some more links into contemporary Web 2.0 events sites (Upcoming, maybe, or Fandango), and with the addition of more user content, it could become a very robust vacation planning tool.
See also my two favorite travel planning tools of late: TripIt and Offbeat Guides.
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