Yahoo! launches personalised online travel planning

10 May, 2007

Yahoo! Travel has launched a new, personalised version of its travel planning website, which blends online community, bargain hunting, and internet mapping technology.

Yahoo! Travel makes trip recommendations based on each person’s history of activity at the website and shares recommendations and detailed journeys of users with similar interests.

The new website also demonstrates a new mapping prototype that allows other maps to be layered over a Yahoo! Map to show greater detail of a particular location and more customised mapping options.

It uses a collaborative Flight Planner plug-in on Yahoo! Messenger so that users can research and book flights in real-time.

The Flight Planner plug-in of Yahoo! Messenger searches for fares on Yahoo! FareChase and allows users to view and select their favorite flight choices together.

Also, using Yahoo! Trip Planner Tagging, travellers can now insert tags within the popular Yahoo! Travel Trip Planner to organise their Trip Plans. Website users will be able to ‘tag’ or label with descriptive words such as ‘romantic’ itineraries that will be kept for the reference of others.

Jasper Malcolmson, director of Yahoo! Travel, says the company aims to transform fundamentally the way people plan and research their vacations and that its Trip Recommendations have been designed to inspire people with new ideas of where to go, and the best price for getting there.

By tapping into the collective intelligence of other like-minded travellers, adds Jasper Malcolmson, “there is a greater ability to plan and take truly memorable trips, no matter how near or far you want to go.”

Travel Guides at the website compile information about prospective destinations, and the FareChase software of Yahoo! scours the internet for hotel and airfare deals.

The internet firm, based in Sunnyvale, California, created a ‘plug-in’ bit of software to enable people in different locations to use Yahoo! Messenger to book flights online together in real time.

Also, a software prototype that allows real-world maps showing terrain, streets and buildings to be layered with Yahoo! Maps revealing directions, landmarks and business is making its debut on Yahoo! Travel.