For the majority of people in the United States, the process of online travel booking is a pretty familiar experience by now. It’s probably right up there with buying books on Amazon or searching for information via Google.

It turns out that online travel is in fact the most mature and largest single e-commerce category. More than $90,000,000,000 (that’s 90 billion dollars) in travel transactions are done online every year—in the United States alone. And the market is still growing—with growth greater than 50 percent (year over year) seen in emerging dominant economies like China, India, and Brazil.

So if online travel has become commonplace, and Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity and Priceline have become household names, why is there such a boom in travel start-ups right now? What problems are they trying to solve? How do they hope to compete?

Look no further than TripAdvisor, the newest household name on the block. TripAdvisor recognized a great opportunity and filled a huge void that was unmet by the large online travel agencies — people want hotel reviews from real people. Is it really surprising that people are nearly twice as likely to trust user reviews than what the hotel says about their rooms? (TripAdvisor now has 10 million reviews and has become such a hot phenomenon, that some hotels have taken to posting favorable reviews of themselves; so make sure you read between the lines.)

So this current groundswell in travel start-ups (which some have dubbed travel 2.0) is a direct response to the identification of a whole host of other niches and voids that have yet to be filled in the space. And the acceleration of innovation over the last 12-18 months is largely attributable to the decreasing cost of technology and simply a function of the Web itself. Data is everywhere (but useful information is scarce), software frameworks have gotten inexpensive and it doesn’t take as much money or as many people to kick-start a new venture. That said, I have a sense that we are seeing a bit of a travel 2.0 bubble with something of a “build it and they will come” philosophy.

As one of the new entrants in this space, we’re trying torestrain ourselves and stay focused—building a great travel planning product and authoring interesting and helpful content. Here are the key issues we see and are focused on:

• Booking is the last 5 percent of the online travel process. The 95 percent that comes before it is where all the

heavy lifting happens. What people want is help in getting ideas of where to travel and what to do. Hence, our investment in editorial content that is vetted, fact-checked and written by local experts and journalists.

• Not everyone who visits your Web site wants the same thing. Relevancy is essential and we’re focusing on family travelers first. We want to make sure that if you’re a family traveler, our insight and information is helpful to you.

• Planning a trip online can be taxing. We think it should be fun and easy. That’s why we’re so jazzed about the TravelMuse Planner which is currently in private beta, but will be broadly available this summer.

While these are the key issues that we’re focused on, there are many more opportunities out there. We’re excited to see what some of our peers are up to like the guys at UpTake who are making it simple to quickly search thousands of content sites to find information relevant to families.

Travel is a space that is constantly re-defining itself and there are many unmet needs still to be addressed. I agree with Yen Lee at Uptake, that online travel is nowhere near "done".

What do you think the big opportunities are? Or for that matter, the nagging little splinters that should get fixed?

We want to hear from you.

The first “official” TravelMuse issue—Chicago—is now live!

Even though we’ve been publishing since late January, and we migrated the Seattle coverage over from our alpha site last week, this is the first time that a new issue has gone live first on the www address. (I also prefer to give props to Chicago because counting our test issues, this is technically No. 7—lucky!—plus it’s my hometown.)

So just what is a TravelMuse issue?

Typically an issue includes an “issue cover, ” focused on a destination or topic, which is comprised of an engaging image, an overview feature geared toward a wide audience, and three or four shorter satellite articles based on family travel. Below that are four general travel features, my editletter and five rotating columns. One or two of the features or columns might also focus on the cover destination, but not always.

Our current roster of columns includes:

Back Page (a weekly essay)
Book Reviews
College Visits
Ecotourism
Offbeat
Products
Special Needs
Taste Buds
Teen Voice
Travel News

What makes the Chicago issue different is the number of articles about the city: 10 out of 14 (not counting my edit letter).

Yes, that’s a lot. But there’s also a lot about the city worth writing about—great places to eat and stay, sights to see, a college visit itinerary, accessible info for visitors with special needs and more. Add in the fact that in addition to my connection to the city, one of our interns and a regular contributor both live in Chicago, and we all wanted to have our say.

You can read more about the overall issue in my Edit Letter, or dig right in to the content on the homepage.

We hope you enjoy the coverage!!

As the co-founders of the company, we’re elated to welcome you to the “almost beta” version of TravelMuse! This has been a labor of love from day one. How many people get to combine a passion for both travel and new products and call it work?
We founded TravelMuse in April 2007 in response to a growing frustration with the sameness of travel content we found on the Web and the time and effort it took to plan a trip online.

Once we realized it wasn’t just us, but rather lots of people who were getting chaffed by having to visit dozens of sites before booking a trip and were growing weary of being served the same regurgitated content, we quit our comfy corporate gigs and started TravelMuse.
Over the last 12 months, we’ve been fortunate to assemble a terrific team of 11 people that shares our passion for building great products—and who of course love to travel. Beyond that common DNA, we’re a diverse bunch—with media, travel, software and publishing backgrounds, and we hail from six different countries:

• Canada,
• Ivory Coast,
• France,
• Scotland,
• China and the
• United States.

This rich mosaic of experiences is something we cherish and, we think, will help us to stay on the cutting edge.
In January of this year, we rolled out the first version of the site showcasing vibrant photography, rich destination guides and original travel articles written by more than 50 seasoned journalists and local experts. We were humbled to get positive and a lot of constructive feedback from our alpha users.
Today we released the TravelMuse Planner to a select group of about 200 alpha users. The Planner allows you to quickly organize and securely share a trip plan with friends and family. The Planner will be open to everyone beginning this summer.

To wrap up this opening post, our ultimate goal is to provide an online travel planning experience that is fun, relevant and a significant improvement over what you find on the Web today. Input and feedback are essential to make this happen. Our sincerest thanks to our alpha users for their insights over the last few months.

To new visitors: please share your thoughts—praise and pans are extremely welcome.

Thanks!

Kevin & Eric