Travel Website UpTake Launches

UpTake.com, formerly Kango.com, launched today with features on thousands of destinations and over two million reviews aggregated from other travel websites such as Orbitz, Travelocity, Virtual Tourist, and Yahoo Travel.

Working to bring semantic search to travel, Uptake:

.... tries to understand travelers' intentions - if a traveler is looking for a hotel that is "good for kids", UpTake interprets it to have the same intent as phrases such as "child friendly" or "family vacation."

The online travel space is one of the most competive in the online world but the semantic approach to search and aggregation of reviews may give UpTake a strategic advantage over other Travel sites.

Hyatt Launches Travel Network "Yatt It"

Hyatt has launched an online travel community called yatt’it. Hyatt said the goal of the web site is to offer travelers credible, candid, fellow-traveler advice, lively discussion forums and direct-booking options. The site features expert insight, advice and tips frequent travelers as wells as Hyatt's concierges in more than 40 destinations around the world.

Are Those Reviews Coming From a Trusted Source?

Today's New York Times has an article on hotel and restaurant reviews. They mostly talk about TripAdvisor and IgoUgo (which I had never heard of until today) and compare them to Zagat. Most of the information in there has been thoroughly discussed before (user reviews vs. editor reviews, moderated vs. un-moderated comments) but one quote from Tim Zagat (Zagat's co-founder) really stood out for me. Talking about consumer reviews, he said:

"Some Internet companies are running into the problem that anybody can throw up things on the wall, and after a while there are just too many people doing it."

What it means: Tim Zagat is onto something. He doesn't express it that way but it's all about reviews from "trusted sources". A trusted source could be, for example, a pro reviewer/critic (aggregated in sites like Metacritic.com), a friend or someone from an affinity group (or trusted community). Some of the travel and review sites out there suffer from a lack of "trusted sources" and it's the reason why we often feel like there's too much information to process when we see hundreds of reviews for a hotel or restaurant. Why would I trust travelingmom526 or baroudeur2004? If they're not direct contacts, how do I know if they have the same taste as me?