What’s the next big thing for Travellers
By Darren Cronian on Thursday, August 9th, 2007

In the past 12 months we’ve seen how travel videos, holiday guides, travel mapping has helped inspire travellers, but this is all becoming old now, and there are tons of travel trip social networking sites, using Google mapping technology, hotel reviews, travel photo and video sharing.

What's the next big thing for Travellers

I receive a lot of emails from people launching trip social networking sites, but there’s nothing unique about them anymore. So, this got me wondering what the next big thing to hit the internet for travellers will be.

I’d like to see more sites using video hotel reviews, because that gives us a real insiders view to the hotel, I suppose even that can be manipulated to the advantage of the hotel owners, and hide the cracks in the walls.

What do you think will be the next big thing?


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10 responses to “What’s the next big thing for Travellers”

Kevin May | 9 August, 2007 at 2:09 pm

intelligent search - Web 3.0, or Travel 3.0.

watch this:

http://travolution.blogspot.com/2007/08/web-30-google-explains.html

and think about how it ill apply to travellers.

Sam I Am | 9 August, 2007 at 2:54 pm

I think it’s time for some consolodating to be quite honest. It seems everyone and their mothers can get a million or two for starting up some variant of a travel site. I for one am hoping that the bottom will fall through this ridiculous bunch of hyped clones that launch under a 2.0 banner. Sure there’s still room for something new, but too many sites are launching with no idea that sets them apart and as soon as their investors start realizing they’re putting their money in a bottomless pit, all the decent players will come out stronger.

Can’t wait! :)

Rob | 9 August, 2007 at 8:07 pm

I agree with Sam.

A lot of the sites are clones and how many social networking sites can you be a member of!

My favourite whilst not specific to travel is Facebook.

Darren Cronian | 10 August, 2007 at 1:06 am

Thanks for the link Kev, will check it out.

Sam, I agree about the number of duplicate looking trip sites, and as Rob mentioned, you can only sign up to so many trip social networking sites before it gets repetitive.

Will we see less people using Google to search for holidays, and more people using travel sites which offer an element of everything we see now, i.e. a site which has social aspect, reviews, videos, and holiday comparison.

Sam I Am | 10 August, 2007 at 8:45 am

I don’t know about less people using Google, but I hope people start using Google less and other search engines more. Yahoo often offers better, less spammy results because they are slightly slower to index and spend more time establishing the relationships between the sites.

That aside, one thing I do hope changes is the public’s perception that a high result in the search engine means a better more reliable site. I hope we’ll see more reliance on trusted networks that the user builds up on their own and this creates the difference between what they view as a more reliable site as opposed to some computed algorithm. This will happen over time, I’m just not sure we’re talking 08 yet :)

I think Eric Schmidt’s answer is too technical plus a lot of what he mentions is already happening right now. The bottom line is that most consumers and customers do not care how what they use is built up, as long as it works well, is intuitive and does what it should. If anything web 3.0 should be about focusing on the consumer and UI again instead of the technology, but I don’t think you’ll hear Google’s CEO say that …

Darren Cronian | 10 August, 2007 at 12:59 pm

If it’s technical I’ll have no idea what he’s going on about! :)

Jadel | 13 August, 2007 at 3:40 pm

I think the Web 3.0 will improve our Web usage and Interactions because of its wider bandwidth. Web 3.0 will surely enhance the web casting including hotels ads via web which will bring new experience to the travelers.

Rob | 14 August, 2007 at 12:18 am

Jadel,

Sorry I don’t understand can you explain what you mean by ‘… because of wider bandwith’?

Darren Cronian | 18 August, 2007 at 3:56 am

No, I’m not sure what Jadel was getting at.

Maybe he is referring to the increasing speeds on Broadband that has meant more people can watch videos online. I don’t think that’ll be a benefit of web3.0 because that’s being offered now.

Rohan | 18 August, 2007 at 4:02 am

What a bunch of geeks!!!

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