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You can't have a travel guide without an editorial voice. There's a huge gap in travel for tooling, and this is a really good addition, but that's not enough by

by cheriot 10y ago

You can't have a travel guide without an editorial voice. There's a huge gap in travel for tooling, and this is a really good addition, but that's not enough by itself. Lonely Planet et al haven't changed meaningfully since the internet was invented, but compare the amount of time people spend looking at a travel guide vs anything with advertising on it. The Priceline Group spent over 5B in 2015 marketing while all of Lonely Planet is worth maybe 250M. Build the next generation guide and you'll capture the booking market with it. And Google will never compete with you for the same reason Facebook got smacked around when they used human news editors. It's crazy winner takes all. That's why it's a battle Google wants to fight: 72B: Priceline Group 15B: Expedia 7B: Trip Advisor 1B Orbitz 176M Travel Zoo

orthoganol 10y ago
I think if this were true TripAdvisor would already have won. In my global travels TA has easily been the best resource for mountains of decent reviews and meaningful "top lists" from people like me. It's not even close, IMO. (Although country/ city specific subreddits can be pretty good too). I also don't actually book through TA and see no need to. I just hop on Kayak, whose interface, filters, map, best prices, ease of booking is something I doubt TA could match.
- avitzurel 10y ago
  This. This is why travel is an insanely hard business. I've been an engineer in the travel business for almost 6 years now and this is a behavior I see constantly (and I am not saying it's bad, don't get me wrong). Often people think that if you create just the right product you will win both the usage and the booking funnels but it's almost impossible to change the behavior of people and the psychology behind the booking. What you see is two completely separate funnels (with different users), one will use your product and one will come for 3 minutes, book and never come back again.
  - cheriot 10y ago
    > This is why travel is an insanely hard business. Ha, yes, it seems like there's always a travel start up failing.
- cheriot 10y ago
  TripAdvisor has awesome coverage, but their strength is their weakness. Filtering through user reviews for a dozen sights in a major city is a shit process. And like you mention, they don't bridge the gap from exciting destination to the steps getting there.
joshschreuder 10y ago
I really like the superfuture guides (http://superfuture.com/supershop http://superfuture.com/supershop). They lean heavily towards shopping (and clothing in particular), but having read the ones for NY and Tokyo, they also have a whole heap of genuinely interesting places that something like a Lonely Planet doesn't have. With that said, their app experience is kind of fragmented and not that strong IMO. But worth a look if you're travelling to one of the countries they cover.
- cheriot 10y ago
  I've not come across them before. Thanks. I'm a big fan of travelfish in SE Asia. Good to see another small guide company out there.

by cheriot 10y ago

orthoganol 10y ago

I think if this were true TripAdvisor would already have won. In my global travels TA has easily been the best resource for mountains of decent reviews and meaningful "top lists" from people like me. It's not even close, IMO. (Although country/ city specific subreddits can be pretty good too). I also don't actually book through TA and see no need to. I just hop on Kayak, whose interface, filters, map, best prices, ease of booking is something I doubt TA could match.

avitzurel 10y ago
This. This is why travel is an insanely hard business. I've been an engineer in the travel business for almost 6 years now and this is a behavior I see constantly (and I am not saying it's bad, don't get me wrong). Often people think that if you create just the right product you will win both the usage and the booking funnels but it's almost impossible to change the behavior of people and the psychology behind the booking. What you see is two completely separate funnels (with different users), one will use your product and one will come for 3 minutes, book and never come back again.
- cheriot 10y ago
  > This is why travel is an insanely hard business. Ha, yes, it seems like there's always a travel start up failing.
cheriot 10y ago
TripAdvisor has awesome coverage, but their strength is their weakness. Filtering through user reviews for a dozen sights in a major city is a shit process. And like you mention, they don't bridge the gap from exciting destination to the steps getting there.

joshschreuder 10y ago

I really like the superfuture guides (http://superfuture.com/supershop http://superfuture.com/supershop). They lean heavily towards shopping (and clothing in particular), but having read the ones for NY and Tokyo, they also have a whole heap of genuinely interesting places that something like a Lonely Planet doesn't have. With that said, their app experience is kind of fragmented and not that strong IMO. But worth a look if you're travelling to one of the countries they cover.

cheriot 10y ago
I've not come across them before. Thanks. I'm a big fan of travelfish in SE Asia. Good to see another small guide company out there.