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Concierge.com adds travel videos from GeoBeats

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Concierge.com is expanding its Insider Guide video series with new material from GeoBeats, a provider of premier destination videos. With almost 200 original, in-depth digital Insider Guides to top destinations around the world and more than 350 Insider Guide videos, Concierge.com provides its visitors with the next best thing to being there. Now, thanks to the additional GeoBeats videos, Concierge.com users can “be there” in even more places.

GeoBeats videos transport travelers to global hot spots, all from the comfort and convenience of their own homes. Travelers who would like to experience the world’s most prestigious destinations firsthand can log on to Concierge.com. Once there, users can take a virtual vacation, including insider looks at the top hotels, attractions, restaurants, and nightspots.

Concierge.com has uploaded GeoBeats videos of Buenos Aires, Florence, Hong Kong, Paris, Venice, Rome, and Bangkok, with more to come. Concierge.com will also continue to produce in-house Insider Guide videos.

Originally posted on March 1, 2008 @ 10:45 pm

WAYN.com reveals strong growth in unique visitors

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WAYN.com, a travel and lifestyle focused social network, announced a 185% rise in unique visitors globally this month, reaching an expected 6.3 million visitors, up from 2.2 million the same time last year. Recent analysis from Nielsen Online also confirmed a 25% increase year on year in the UK alone. The site boasts over 11 million members in over 193 different countries and is growing by up to 15,000 new members every day.

WAYN has seen a huge increase in growth and popularity in recent months, largely due to it opening up to the site to free interaction and introducing a number of new and innovative offerings, which have increased the stickiness of the site.

Originally posted on February 28, 2008 @ 12:07 am

Travelstar launches social networking site

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Travelstar, Inc. announced the beta launch of Travelstar.com, a social networking site for passionate leisure travelers. Travelstar.com combines the most popular social networking features enabling users to share vacation photos, read and write reviews, interact in traveler forums and blog about their travel adventures.

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Originally posted on February 27, 2008 @ 4:12 pm

Sabre to launch Enterprise 2.0 Community Platform for travel industry

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sabre.pngSabre Travel Network announced its plans to launch the first Enterprise 2.0 Community Platform developed specifically with travelers in mind, called cubeless.

The cubeless platform is designed specifically for facilitating the sharing of knowledge and expertise throughout a corporation’s most valuable knowledge base: its employees. The community features of cubeless join together the knowledge base of employees from local to global and makes it easy for them to share advice and recommendations about travel and other topics of shared interest.

American Express Business Travel and Sabre are working to partner on the initial launch of cubeless, which is scheduled for mid-2008. The focus will be on corporate travelers, offering cubeless as a new module from Sabre’s GetThere – the world’s leading corporate booking solution and a long-time partner of American Express Business Travel. Sabre intends to continue to develop and offer community products to other segments of the travel marketplace throughout 2008 and beyond.

Originally posted on February 21, 2008 @ 6:01 am

Kayak.com enhances its Fare Alerts tracking system

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kayak.gifKayak.com, the largest Travel 2.0 in the world, has improved its infamous Fare Alerts system to help savvy travelers track fares on all destinations around the globe.

Now, users can track fares for a specific date or monitor the best prices for a timeframe such as an upcoming weekend or a given month. The new Fare Alerts email will also include the following:

  1. Dollar amount that a fare has increased or decreased since the alert was created
  2. Best Fare Trend Graph which displays airfare history for the requested route based on searches by Kayakers over the past 90 days
  3. Snapshot of prices in Kayak.com’s matrix view which enables users to quickly compare prices by carrier and number of stops
  4. Ability to search for updated prices and availability, edit the alert or delete the alert.

One of the exciting features of this travel search engine is its Trip Idea intended for users who do not have specific destination to go to. Some of its popular categories include “Best Nude Beaches”, “Most Romantic Cities”, and “World’s Sexiest Islands”.

Originally posted on February 19, 2008 @ 5:16 am