Imagine the ability to tap into everything your friends know about travel. Every destination they've been, every activity they've done, every hotel they've stayed in, every trip they've taken. If you could bottle that up and use it for your next trip, wouldn't that be valuable to you? That's the power of FriendSourced Travel.

What Is FriendSourced Travel?

FriendSourced Travel describes the process of tabulating input from your Facebook friends for the sole purpose of making a more informed and personalized travel decision. Facebook friend covers friends/family/acquaintances that are your 'friends' on Facebook.

FriendSourced travel falls under the banner of social travel.

Simple Example

If you were trying to decide where to go for your honeymoon, you'd FriendSource this to all your married FaceBook friends. You could suggest a few destinations and gauge their input or leave the destination list entirely up to them.

It's a conscious decision to include a cross section of your friends in the traveldecision making process and not just a few random phone calls or emails asking where you should go.

Why Would You FriendSource your Travel?

FriendSourcing your Travel captures conscious and subconscious nuggets of information we all collect from one another, through initial and ongoing interactions, for the purpose of making more informed travel decisions.

When I recommend a trip or a destination or activity to you, I automatically use what I know in the decision making process. That's the beauty of FriendSourced Travel.

Even in very loose interactions, people get to know you. By meeting you at a party, I'd get to know a little about you (first impressions, what do you do, interests, where you work, who else you know here, where you went to school, whether you're smart or not, how much I like you ...). Maybe we see each other at church or over dinner, we talk some more. Fast forward a few months and we become Facebook Friends. By this point, we know quite a bit about one another don't we? Maybe you find out I've been to Fiji and London and Hong Kong. I find out you've been to Italy and Morocco.

With FriendSourcing, we can tap into each others travel knowledge to make our next trip better.

FriendSourcing Travel Done Right

FriendSourcing Travel can't be done through wall posts and comments. There needs to be a Facebook application built around the components of FriendSourcing Travel.

That allows for suggestions on where to go/what to do/where to stay.

To allow for a healthy discourse (read arguments) so people can share their experiences and influence one another. Think a few one liners and not lengthy soliloquy's like this blog post.

Last but not least, to allow for people to rank the collective suggestions and vote on them like you would a Digg post.

There needs to be a mechanism to give more weight to some friends than others -- so friends who've been to that destination before (because their profile says so) get more weight in the decision making process. I can assign a 3.0X multiple to my friend John who lives on a plane. I could assign more weight to a destination my wife "votes" up. Even the ability to remove friends from the decision making process all together.

The application should allow me to segment my friends by geography, status, age, etc. I should be able to ask just my married friends about where to go for my honeymoon, or only my single friends on where I should go for my bachelor party. I should be able to ask my friends in New Yorkfor what Indian Restaurant I should go to next time I'm there.

The application needs to assign all my friends a 'score' based on where they've been. This can be derived literally from the  'Where I've Been' Facebook Application but not everybody has that installed so we'd have to look at interests, tags, destinations and more nuances sources like "Our Fiji Honeymoon Pictures" or "Fiji Videos".

I'm just scratching the surface on functionality.

Where Can I FriendSource my Travel?

There are a few companies that are starting to do this but none that warrant me listing them here. I'll post a list in October 2010. Sorry!

What to FriendSource

Any trip qualifies. Even business trips (imagine a LinkedIn FriendSourcded Travel application).

When to FriendSource your Travel

When you have enough of a "network" of friends, when you have some connection to your friends, when (on the whole) you trust your friends, when you're open to the idea of outside influence in your travel decision making process.

When NOT to FriendSource your Travel

This approach is based on the premise that your online friends (Facebook friends for example) have some connection to you. If you accept every Facebook Friend Request regardless of whether you know them or not, this doesn't apply to you. I would argue you're getting closer to CrowdSourcing your Travel there.

If you don't have a large enough pool of Friends, don't bother. If it's just you and 3 Facebook friends, this isn't going to work. You need at least 50 friends or more and ideally more. On the whole, certainly after 6 months to a year, you're going to have enough friends to qualify for FriendSourcing your Travel.

Rebuttals

Can't you just search travel review sites and do a little homework? Sure you can but FriendSourcing can extend that research even further. It's not an either or, you can do both. Even if you compare FriendSourcing to individual research, done right, FriendSourcing yields a better result.

What if I'm friends with someone who's travel opinion I don't want? The application should allow to 'ignore' a persons recommendation in the final tally.

Can I use this with Twitter or Ning or other networks? Possibly. Preferablysocial networks that mimic the social dynamics of Facebook.  Networks where anybody can friend or follow you do not apply.

Tell me what you think!

Share some comments and follow me on Twitter (@travelalchemist) for updates.

The first company that does this will offer a leap forward in social travel in a way we have yet to see.

Highlights from the  Travel Weekly 2010 Consumer Survey (click link for complete survey)

18-31 year olds like using Travel Agents

Who knew! The 18 to 31 year olds represent 14% of the population yet represent a significantly higher percentage of theleisure travelers who use traditional agents. This is attributed to, among a variety of reasons, to that generation wanting to be coddled and online information overload.

Frugality is the new norm.

Travelers are 36% more likely to use coupons, 35% more likely to wait for sales, 26% more likely to buy online.

The Only Green People Want To See Are Lower Fares

Of the total surveyed, 84% said no or are unsure about paying a higher fare to use a travel supplier that demonstrates environment responsibility.

Lists 4 different "tribes" of leisure travelers.

•Sensationals make up 28% of all leisure travelers and are the youngest of the four segments (mean age of 40). They tend to be professional singles and couples with a preference for action/the club life. They also favor adventure and outdoor vacations, clothing-optional/spa destinations and travel primarily to play. They are particularly receptive to travel deals discovered through flash emails.

• Families represent 23% of all leisure travelers. They are family-vacation-oriented, represent the second-youngest segment by age (mean of 42), reside in dual-income households with children under 18 and are package-travel-oriented. Their preferences include theme parks, predictable experiences, cruises and beach vacations. They are safety-conscious and are smart comparison shoppers.

• Touristers represent 23% of all leisure travelers. They are happily married and the second-oldest group (mean of 47), entrepreneurial/driven to succeed and favor "no-mistake" travel. They view travel as an opportunity to learn. They take the most trips and spend the highest amount per trip. Their travel preferences index highly on family visits and high-end global destinations.

• Extraordinaires make up 26% of all travelers and are the oldest tribe (mean of 52).

More than one-third (36%) are grandparents. They tend to be wealthy empty-nesters seeking urban cultural experiences with a particular interest in museums and the theater. City, European and other foreign destinations index highly in terms of their preferences. They have a penchant for boutique hotels and resorts.

As an investor in travel companies -- from private beta travel startups to larger VC & travel growth equity deals -- I am fortunate to talk to travel companies of all sizes from all corners of the world.

One common theme are travel startup co-founders who do not come from the travel industry who reach an invisible ceiling when dealing with travel suppliers, reservation systems and members of the trade.

Foremost, If you find yourself in this situation, don't feel bad. You're not alone. That's just the way it is. It won't change anytime soon.  Heck, I wouldn't have a job if it was that easy! Took me 12 years in travel (on the agency and travel technology side) to get a feeling for how things truly work and even now I learn new things by virtue of the seasoned executives I work with.

Secondly, there is nothing wrong with this situation. It's what you do about it that I have an issue with.

How to Fix The Problem

• Going It Alone: The Worst Thing To Do. There are outliers who do it alone but they are so few and far between that they're not worth mentioning. The majority (in my experience circa 95% of) shouldn't. The ones I've seen -- and I can't name them or I would -- are because they are so different that traditional travel suppliers are willing to give it a shot  and these companies almost always have a very strong 'IN'. While the founders may not be from the industry, they engaged somebody with some industry gray hair on their behalf. Rarely is it a 'cold call' into a supplier. Somebody new to the travel game going at it alone doesn't have a chance past some fluke wins and never enough to have a sustainable business model. Ask for help, it's natural

• Get Good Advisors from the Travel Industry. Former travel executives, former travel company operators, somebody who has already done what you're trying to do; who can advise you with your strategy and business development.  Somebody hands on through till the deal is completed. Not just an introduction and you're on your own.  I'm biased but ask any travel startup whether I'm right. It would be one thing if "Going At It Alone" was only 2 or 3 times harder but my experience show it's considerably longer. 7 to 10 times harder. That's a lot of time and money to spend hitting your head against the wall -- assuming you have the time and money to spare -- which no travel startup ever does. All the while other travel startups are popping up every week.

• Mashup with other travel startups/Web 2.0 Company API's. Don't have your own reservation system to pull flights from, what about using the Kayak API. What about a travel affiliate program in lieu of your own relationships. You won't make alot of $ but you'll have something to show your clients. Unfortunately this strategy won't work because you're selling what's already out there. If you're selling the same fares as everybody else, do you expect alot of transactions? You're just keeping up appearances to avoid gaping holes on your site.  You'll almost always need deep integration deployments which most affiliates programs don't offer. It's a viable interim solution. Travel startups use API mashups because they're  (a) not concentrating on revenue or (b) as a stop gap measure until professional industrial grade travel technology (booking engines, GDS links, etc..) are available. You'll need a proper travel technology platform if you intend on building a sustainable business.

• Use Free or Open Source Data. You can get valuable content from Wikipedia.org to WikiTravel to a variety of places for free or for a low cost. Many travel startups already do if you take a deeper look. They have a core set of unique features complemented by 3rd party API's (Google, Kayak, IAN, etc..). Panaramio is a good example. There are some good services out there I would use as an interim solution.

• Do a Round to Hire A Travel Executive. This is a tough proposition. Most investors 'don't get' travel investments. Be prepared for a lot of hand holding, a lot of 'educating', a reduced valuation and little in terms of productive post-investment relationships. While an investor "who knows somebody at Expedia" is better than nothing, knowing the contact is 1 thing -- actually talking the talk in a way a travel supplier will understand is something only a travel industry executive can do best. Is that investor going to be with you every step of the way for the next 4-6 months it takes to close a deal? It can be done  -- don't get me wrong -- but when you're at a travel startup you don't have the time to 'experiment' and no investor is going to put up with 'trial by error' on their dime.  Many a founder has realized money isn't enough. You need domain expertise. At an angel investment level I think "non-travel" investors should be avoided unless they're fine with putting in the money and hiring "travel experts" to formally guide the company. Being a "travel investor", I am biased, but ask any travel startup founder and I suspect they'll agree with me. If you have to get angel money, augment that with some travel executives and ensure everybody knows their place. The angel investors are the funds and the executives bring the travel industry knowledge.

• Know What You're Good At and What You Not. Or find somebody you trust to guide you. I had a meeting a few weeks ago with somebody in the tourism business who wanted to advise our experts on SEO and Online Marketing Initiatives yet prior to the meeting simply outsourced his website to somebody else and wasn't using the Internet to sell his inventory now. It was purely a content site. My response was, what competency do you have with SEO/Online Marketing? This wasn't a "I like to listen in so I can learn" call -- which I encourage -- this was a "I have some serious notions in mind" call yet I've never done this before all while I want to work with a team that's done this for the past 5+ years with people who've done online travel marketing for the past 10 years. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and heard a few suggestions only to end the engagement 3 hours later. Its critically important to set the boundaries (ie: the vision is spearheaded by the founders, the travel related decisions are joint but favor the travel executive..) between what the (non travel) founders know and do and what the travel executives will do.

• One Supplier Is Never Enough. Just because you have 1 vendors inventory -- say a hotel vendor -- doesn't

   

  

  Image via CrunchBase

   

  mean you have all the inventory to sell. Said another way, getting Hotels.com or CCRA isn't the end all of all. They are both fine companies but the more inventory you can get, the better. They may be enough for certain use cases but without knowing the strengths/weaknesses of all the discount discount hotel inventory, how do you know you're okay? Particularly if you have a broad client base. If you have a niche -- say Las Vegas Hotels -- and you do a deal with the largest Las Vegas Discount Hotel Provider -- you're golden. Most travel startups don't follow such a narrow niche.

• Inventory is critical to any travel startup. You don't need 1 set of inventory, you need them ALL. Do you even know how many pools of discount inventory are out there -- multiply that for every travel product you sell. Let alone getting 'approved' at the highest purchasing levels to actually compete with established players. The introductory "you're a small agency" commissions and price breaks isn't going to cut it. You need the volume purchasing discounts and its unlikely you'll get that without millions of dollars of existing volume and a track record even if you negotiate well and are funded. Once you get your account setup -- assuming it happens at all and it always takes more time than you could ever imagine -- you still have to get the inventory from their system into yours. A Javascript embed isn't going to cut it. Do you have a team of developers that have nothing else to do? And you need to repeat this for every vendor you plan on adding. If there are 12 pools of discount hotel inventory, that's 12 integrations, 12 relationships, months for each relationship and that's assuming you actually get approved. Oh by the way, all of the API's change all the time so you'll need to keep up. Did I mention there are discrepancies between what a reservation system says it does and what it can actually do via the API. There are times -- shockingly -- where the marketing team suggests features the technical team hasn't implemented yet. As a new client -- will you be in on the beta group to figure this out early? I can list dozens of situations any one of whom would bog a travel startup down.

• Travel Developers, Not Just Any Software Developer. Depending on the use case, you may have no choice but in hiring software developers versed in travel technology. Simply hiring very good programmers isn't enough. There is a steep learning curve when it comes to travel supplier integrations and the nuances of travel trade that cannot be taught on the fly. Who's going to teach them at a travel startup without travel founders? I've seen this happen time and again. The project does get done but multiples longer and costlier than intended. Which to a founder translates to stress and investors screaming at you for missing deadlines. There's enough that can go wrong with any software development package -- which are sometimes rushed, poorly planned and underfunded -- coupled with offshore development headaches that by the time you throw in the travel trade learning curve, the founder is really dealing with a low to single digit success rate for an on time deployment.

You can see why travel startups have a low hit rate when it comes to penetrating the industry. They're fishes out of water. Rest assured there is help out there.

Give Me Your Feedback

Do you work at a travel startup? What are your experiences? Have some 'horror stories' to share? If you find this post valuable, please comment and Retweet!

I see Google coming out with its own travel platform based on my  'connecting the dots' between Google's existing product line and previous travel acquisitions. It certainly has all the pieces to. Only the powers that be within Google truly know -- I'm just thinking out loud here.

I see the ITA Platform being the parent travel architecture --- the Mother Ship -- which it’ll use to plug existing and future travel products/services into. Throw a few acquisitions in there to balance out the platform offering.

• Airfare Pricing -- The billions of combinations of fares, schedules and availability available through the ITA QPX product.

• Mobile Booking Engine or Mobile Travel Platform through the OnTheFly product ITA currently has.

• Travel Content -- through Ruba (there are better content companies to buy but that’s for another blog post!). Coupled with YouTube travel videos.

• Visual Travel -- add ITA Software to Google Earth and the notion of visual travel that many travel startups are attempting. Where a traveler can “see” their destination in 3D as part of researching a trip. How nice would that be – if their Visual Travel Offering is really good, maybe I won’t need to go on vacation at all. Just zooming in and “walking around” will be good enough.

• Visual Travel Lite -- add ITA Software to Google Maps for what I’ll describe as visual travel lite. Ability to pick multiple points on a Google Map and automatically get pricing. Where it’s a 2D experience akin to what Kayak Explore does (which I love by the way – we need that but with the right inventory so I don’t have to search another site but Kayak!).

• Google Checkout Travel Merchant Services -- Google Checkout, with changes in feature and policy, could easily offer a Travel Merchant Account Product. Anybody that sells travel knows how much of a problem taking credit cards is.

• Google Social Travel play through the integration of ITA Software/Engine and the launch of (potential) Googles Kayak Killer coupled with its upcoming Facebook Killer. I agree that’s a lot of ‘theory’ but the stage is being set – whether they do it or not is a different story. A true social travel play could be in the making and I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with a number of social travel startups doing some very exciting things in this space. Google if you want to acquire any of them, please be in touch.

• Predictive Travel. Take Google Insights for Search (for travel keywords for example) coupled with the QPX pricing engine coupled with the “predictive” algorithms in Google Trends and you could have a pretty interesting “travel suggestion engine” play going. End goal? For Google to tell me where I should go on vacation without having to think about it. 1 less thing I need to do.

• The Door to Door Travel Company Play – take a number of “lesser” services like Google City Tours, Google Transit and add it to the ITA Software (and others on the page) along the lines of what Zoombu and other “door to door journey” sites want to do. Particularly as a differentiator within the (potential) Google Kayak Killer.

• YouTube Travel Videos and User Generated Travel Content.

• Customer Service -- Post purchase assistance with ticket changes and refunds and by addressing other “post purchase’ pain points based on the ITA Software ReShop product. Then integrating these services via an API.

Agree? Disagree?

Please RETWEET!