I do also agree with a lot of what the Mozio blogger mentioned, especially in regards to using a sledgehammer when a chisel would do just fine. I do however, especially given my position at a travel focused startup, think it's good that there is so much support and funding given to try and make the travel search space better. I know people from all three of the startups mentioned and they are each trying to tackle what they see as shortcomings in the current state of travel.
Social introduced a new opportunity to tap your friends for travel recommendations and tips but there lacked that follow up (hence Trippy which allows those who suggest places for you to visit to get updates when you check into those locations) that is so satisfying. It answers the question "so did you go to that place ..." when the trip is happening and not after.
Hipmunk is doing a lot of interesting things like integrating AirBnB listings and also revealing heatmaps for which areas of cities have the things people like to do like eat, party, vice, etc. so they know where they should be looking for a convenient hotel.
Gogobot, in my opinion, is better just layered on Facebook but they probably have the best chance of doing a better social recommendation algorithm given their leadership position in the space so I'm looking forward to seeing what comes out of that.
Since the Kayak launch waaaaay back, there really hasn't been that much travel startup innovation. If anything, the landscape has gotten more confusing and worst for consumers in my opinion. The average user checks over 3+ sites before booking because they just don't know where they can find the best prices. There's so much focus on monetization that everywhere you turn, you get pop-ups and more pop-ups and by the time you're done, you're not even sure how you ended up on the site you are on to buy your ticket, book your hotel, etc.
Over at our startup, Room 77, we are focused on a real travel search problem specifically in the hotel space. There's too much price fragmentation and the current solutions today aren't satisfying to us. For example, everyone offers a "best price guarantee" but everyone has a different price, so who's lying and who's telling the truth? Sites that claim to search all the other hotel sites show you 3 prices and then a bunch of links that open pop-ups to other sites. How is that a great user experience? We see a lot of opportunity to provide true price transparency in hotel search w/o compromising the user experience. Would love to get your feedback on our site, we've recently focused more on pricing transparency and less on our unique hotel layout and rooms database information.
I'm excited there's so much discussion on this travel related thread and happy to respond more when I get home later. Although I'm immersed in the hotel space now, I was part of the team at Farecast that became Bing Travel (fare predictions) so I can provide some insight there as well.
Social introduced a new opportunity to tap your friends for travel recommendations and tips but there lacked that follow up (hence Trippy which allows those who suggest places for you to visit to get updates when you check into those locations) that is so satisfying. It answers the question "so did you go to that place ..." when the trip is happening and not after.
Hipmunk is doing a lot of interesting things like integrating AirBnB listings and also revealing heatmaps for which areas of cities have the things people like to do like eat, party, vice, etc. so they know where they should be looking for a convenient hotel.
Gogobot, in my opinion, is better just layered on Facebook but they probably have the best chance of doing a better social recommendation algorithm given their leadership position in the space so I'm looking forward to seeing what comes out of that.
Since the Kayak launch waaaaay back, there really hasn't been that much travel startup innovation. If anything, the landscape has gotten more confusing and worst for consumers in my opinion. The average user checks over 3+ sites before booking because they just don't know where they can find the best prices. There's so much focus on monetization that everywhere you turn, you get pop-ups and more pop-ups and by the time you're done, you're not even sure how you ended up on the site you are on to buy your ticket, book your hotel, etc.
Over at our startup, Room 77, we are focused on a real travel search problem specifically in the hotel space. There's too much price fragmentation and the current solutions today aren't satisfying to us. For example, everyone offers a "best price guarantee" but everyone has a different price, so who's lying and who's telling the truth? Sites that claim to search all the other hotel sites show you 3 prices and then a bunch of links that open pop-ups to other sites. How is that a great user experience? We see a lot of opportunity to provide true price transparency in hotel search w/o compromising the user experience. Would love to get your feedback on our site, we've recently focused more on pricing transparency and less on our unique hotel layout and rooms database information.
I'm excited there's so much discussion on this travel related thread and happy to respond more when I get home later. Although I'm immersed in the hotel space now, I was part of the team at Farecast that became Bing Travel (fare predictions) so I can provide some insight there as well.