> Then drop in this hard truth - recreational travel isn't actually all that commonplace amongst average people. The average joe goes on one or two major vacations in their entire life.
The vast majority of people who go on a vacation, especially with children, just get into a car they own and drive there, typically to a place they are familiar with for some historical reason like family, etc. There just aren't that many variables involved.
Yup, exactly. The other scenarios are visiting a friend / family member, who holds the responsibility of "tour guide", meaning the only thing the family books is a flight and maybe a rental car. Or they book an all-inclusive package deal to lower the risk of a national lampoon style vacation disaster.
Either way these types of middle-class family vacation package trips are pretty well locked up online by the likes of Expedia and big corporate partners who have a lot of volume resale power like Costco. The remaining sliver of the family travel market - wealthy people & retirees - are actually still mostly the domain of the legacy travel agency business. Licensed travel agents not only still exist, but they're thriving in some cases. And get better commission $$ per sale than integrating with an affiliate partner, to boot.
The ironic sad reality is that anyone thinking of making a living running a travel app/site, is probably much better off getting travel agent certification instead...
>The remaining sliver of the family travel market - wealthy people & retirees - are actually still mostly the domain of the legacy travel agency business.
Even if it's not traditional legacy travel agents, you also have all manner of adventure travel and similar organizations that will arrange private small group trips. Ultimately, if you're doing something complicated and obscure, dealing with an experienced human is often the best thing--even if it flies in the face of "do everything in software" which is SV's answer to everything.
> Then drop in this hard truth - recreational travel isn't actually all that commonplace amongst average people. The average joe goes on one or two major vacations in their entire life.
The vast majority of people who go on a vacation, especially with children, just get into a car they own and drive there, typically to a place they are familiar with for some historical reason like family, etc. There just aren't that many variables involved.