TravelMuse Launches Public Beta and Introduces Industry’s
First “Inspiration Finder”
Within Its Next-Generation Travel Planning Site
TravelMuse Transforms and Personalizes the Online Travel Planning
Experience by Providing the First Site Designed to Work the Way
Consumers Instinctively Plan Their Trips
LOS ALTOS, Calif. (Business Wire EON) June 12, 2008 --
TravelMuse, Inc. announced today the public beta release of
TravelMuse.com and the industry’s first “Inspiration
Finder,” which offers consumers the ability to
quickly discover destinations that match their personal preferences and
needs. The TravelMuse Inspiration Finder is the first solution of its
kind to consider multiple dimensions of travel information including
budget, ages of travelers, maximum travel distance and preferred
vacation activities to quickly identity best-fit destinations.
The TravelMuse Inspiration Finder integrates seamlessly with the
powerful “TravelMuse Planner,”
which allows consumers to easily bring all their trip research together
in one place. Travelers can now research and save content from
TravelMuse or other Web sites to the TravelMuse Planner and share it all
securely with family and friends.
By combining these innovative tools with its existing travel guides,
stunning photography and editorial content, TravelMuse establishes a
position as the first and only online travel planning platform that
brings together the entire travel planning experience onto a single site.
“Consumers are overwhelmed by the volume of
travel content on the Web and are seeking relevancy and sense-making
tools,” said Kevin Fliess, CEO and co-founder
of TravelMuse, Inc. “Empowering people with
information more relevant to them will continue to be the future trend
in online travel planning, and matching this movement with easy-to-use,
personalized travel planning tools will be paramount to the consumer’s
successful planning experience.”
How TravelMuse Works
TravelMuse helps travelers save time and make better decisions at every
step of the travel planning process by providing one of the Web’s
most user-friendly travel planning experiences. The starting point is
the TravelMuse Inspiration Finder, which helps people discover and plan
their best trips based upon their specific wants, needs and constraints.
Next, the easy-to-use TravelMuse Planner, original editorial content and
destination guides help the traveler research, plan, share and book
their ideal trip.
Breakthrough TravelMuse Inspiration
Finder
The TravelMuse Inspiration Finder helps people make better travel
decisions faster. It eliminates the time-consuming and complex tasks of
manually searching for and comparing destinations and, as a result,
reduces the effort of destination discovery from many hours to a matter
of seconds. The TravelMuse Inspiration Finder makes the process simple
for users by taking the following criteria into account simultaneously:
-
Travel budget: TravelMuse recognizes that cost is a key
consideration when deciding on a vacation destination.
-
Number of hours from home airport: TravelMuse knows that
distance matters depending on the duration of your trip or who is
going on the trip.
-
Desired vacation activities: TravelMuse appreciates how
important it is to find a vacation spot that meets everyone’s
interests.
-
Number and ages of people traveling: TravelMuse understands the
unique challenges of family travel and knows the most kid-friendly
spots.
-
Exact travel dates or time of year: TravelMuse
recognizes that sometimes your travel dates are fixed and sometimes
they are flexible.
From the TravelMuse Inspiration Finder search results, consumers can
perform a side-by-side comparison of destinations by budget, travel
time, themes and activities, and view sample packages with approximate
pricing.
No other travel planning site has offered an easier, more accurate way
to get inspired.
Powerful TravelMuse Planner
The TravelMuse Planner helps consumers save time when planning trips.
The solution provides a safe and secure environment that enables
individuals to:
-
Build a trip list of all the places they want to go.
-
Research and plan all their trips from a single secure environment.
-
Store trip research found on TravelMuse, such as hotel descriptions,
city guides, attraction information, restaurant reviews and original
articles written by travel experts.
-
Store trip research found anywhere on the Web by using the simple
TravelMuse Bookmarker.
-
Share all this travel research securely with family and friends.
-
Quickly and easily book air, car, hotel, packages and cruises when
ready to purchase.
Comprehensive Travel Guides; Engaging
Original Content
TravelMuse provides destination guides with more than 100,000 points of
interest. In addition, the site includes original editorial content for
families written by nearly 50 seasoned journalists and local experts.
-
Comprehensive travel guides covering more than 200 domestic and
international destinations
-
New travel articles posted every week
-
Breathtaking travel photography from TravelMuse members and partners
TravelMuse members can also engage with travel communities by commenting
and rating articles, hotels and restaurants, and by joining discussions
on TravelMuse blogs.
“Our partnership spent a year looking for the
right start-up to invest in within travel,”
said Michael Kwatinetz, Founding General Partner of Azure Capital, a
lead investor in TravelMuse. “We also saw a
need for an online concierge in the travel space and were delighted to
invest in TravelMuse. The planning tools and professional content found
on TravelMuse.com are a big leap forward toward this vision of providing
users with a better, more personalized travel planning experience.”
About TravelMuse, Inc.
TravelMuse.com is a new, inspirational travel planning Web site that
helps people save time and make better decisions by combining
stimulating travel content, such as stunning photography, professionally
written travel articles and numerous licensed city guides, with powerful
planning tools. Founded by avid travelers with various technology,
travel and media backgrounds, the TravelMuse team shares a passion for
all things travel and is motivated to greatly improve the online travel
planning experience. Site visitors can use the industry’s
first Inspiration Finder to discover destinations, build out vacation
plans in the TravelMuse Planner and make air, car, hotel, cruise and
package reservations through a comprehensive booking engine to complete
vacation arrangements. (Reservations made on TravelMuse.com are powered
by World Choice Travel, a division of Travelocity.com LP, a Sabre
Holdings company.) TravelMuse also understands the specific requirements
of traveling with children and allows friends and families to securely
share travel plans. Headquartered in Los Altos, Calif., TravelMuse has
raised more than $3 million in funding from Azure Capital Partners and
California Technology Ventures. For more information, visit www.travelmuse.com.
TravelMuse Beta Limitations
As with any new Web site, TravelMuse.com users may experience temporary
performance degradation or Web site outages. The TravelMuse team will
strive to continuously improve performance and the overall site
experience. TravelMuse welcomes feedback from beta users. Comments and
suggestions can be provided directly through the Feedback page on the
site.
The TravelMuse.com experience has been optimized for today’s
best web browser technologies including Firefox 2.0 and higher, Internet
Explorer 7.0. TravelMuse also supports Internet Explorer 6.0 and Safari
3.1.
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