Quick peek on Brainstorming

I’m working with a project that combines the good possibilities of recommendation engine and ease of travel planning. Internet and the rise of DIY travelers have really taken the share from travel agencies: people devote humongous time to search for perfect hotel and cheapest flights as well as to inspire from new travel locations. It’s not really effective and the information given may not necessarily be specific enough. Not to mention the advertizing spam that you have to deal with search engines - a lot of time is wasted to dead ends.

I’ve been playing with hunch with couple of friends of mine and sure, it’s really entertaining but in the end (at the moment) the app is too general and without worthy information behind the recommendations. Travel agencies have noticed the possibilities of recommendation engines, too. For example, Loma-aparaatti by Aurinkomatkat that they call “Ihmekone” that recommends a location based on 183594 customers.  On scale 0-5 you can define what kind of vacationer you are on areas such as shopping, family situation and culture etc. After the simple questionare, you get the recommendations or you can try again. Again, fun to try out but doesn’t really provide anything new for the customer that s/he wouldn’t find through search engine. The interrelations between different areas and the context are missing. Plus never mind the branding.... aparaatti!

Travel agency websites don’t take into account social aspect at all. They don’t provide forums, customer experiences nor recommendations. People don’t commit themselves to a travel service and thus a company specific social platform in travel business is kind of fool’s errand. But what is surprising to me, is that they don’t even link to social media advocates! This recommendation and planning service with no doubt is for the whole tourism/travel business, no use of every agency developing their own.

So the travel recommendation and planning service provides added-value in the following areas. A) Making the search process more effective by filtering the relevant experiences and information. B) A social platform where you can plan together with your friends. At the moment it seems to be handled through various means: email, face-to-face and on the phone. C) information provided is based on users and search engines D)  By generating your own profile you get recommendations based on a)  you know what you want b) what your friends prefer c) I’ll try my luck.

What I’m working on now: the role of travel preferences through life, how travel planning occurs online and the gaming perspective of generating the profile.

So let me know if you’re interested. More information incoming, so stay tuned!